■ 

■-:-:■    ■■-■■■■^j-.y              ■    "     :■■ 

,  ■a:j:^Ll.::::xJ-&-.: 

W:. 

mm 

mmmmm 

^^J 

:B 

m:''M:yB:S$mt:.^^^^^^^^^ 

It  9  1  2 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


JAN    ^1990 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  frorh ' 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/d'etails/essayonhasheeshiOOrobiiala 


AN  ESSAY  ON 
HASHEESH 

INCLUDING 

OBSERVATIONS    AND    EXPERIMENTS 


BY 

VICTOR  ROBINSON 

Contributing  Editor,  Medical  Revieiv  of  Re'vieivs, 

Pharmaceutical  Chemiit,  Columbia  University, 

Member  of  the  American  Chemical  Society, 

Author  of  ^* Pathfinders  in  MedicineJ" 


MEDICAL   REVIEW  OF  REVIEW^S 

TWO   HUNDRED   AND   SIX   BROADWAY 
NEW   YORK 

1912 


Copyright,  1912 
By  medical  REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS 


"What  is  left  for  us  modern  men?  We  can- 
not be  Greek  now.  The  cypress  of  knowledge 
springs,  and  withers  when  it  comes  in  sight  of 
Troy;  the  cypress  of  pleasure  likewise,  if  it  has 
not  died  already  at  the  root  of  cankering  Cal- 
vinism; the  cypress  of  religion  is  tottering. 
What  is  left?  Science,  for  those  who  are  scien- 
tific. Art  for  artists;  and  all  literary  men  are 
artists  in  a  way.  But  science  falls  not  to  the 
lot  of  all.  Art  is  hardly  worth  pursuing  now. 
What  is  left?  Hasheesh,  I  think:  Hasheesh  of 
one  form  or  another.  We  can  dull  the  pangs 
of  the  present  by  living  the  past  again  in  rever- 
ies or  learned  studies,  by  illusions  of  the  fancy 
and  a  life  of  self-indulgent  dreaming.  Take 
down  the  perfumed  scrolls;  open,  unroll,  peruse, 
digest,  intoxicate  your  spirit  with  the  flavor. 
Behold,  here  is  the  Athens  of  Plato  in  your 
narcotic  visions;  Buddha  and  his  anchorites  ap- 
pear; the  raptures  of  St.  Francis  and  the  fire- 
oblations  of  St.  Dominic;  the  phantasms  of  myth- 
ologies; the  birth-throes  of  religion,  the  neurotism 
of  chivalry,  the  passion  of  past  poems;  all  pass 
before  you  in  your  Maya  world  of  hasheesh, 
Tvhich  is  criticism." — John  Addington  Symonds. 


An  Essay  on  Hasheesh 

INCLUDING     OBSERVATIONS     AND 

EXPERIMENTS. 

By  Victor  Robinson. 

"And  now,  borne  far  thru  the  steaming  air 
floats  an  odor,  balsamic,  startling;  the  odor 
of  those  plumes  and  stalks  and  blossoms  from 
which  is  exuding  freely  the  narcotic  resin  of 
the  great  nettle.  The  nostril  expands  quickly, 
the  lungs  swell  out  deeply  to  draw  it  in : 
fragrance  once  known  in  childhood,  ever  in 
the  memory  afterward,  and  able  to  bring  back 
to  the  wanderer  homesick  thoughts  of  mid- 
summer days  in  the  shadowy,  many-toned 
woods,  over  into  which  is  blown  the  smell  of 
the   hemp-fields." 

Allen  :  The  Reign  of  Law. 

"At  the  mere  vestibule  of  the  temple  I  could 
have  sat  and  drunk  in  ecstasy  forever,  but 
lo !  I  am  yet  more  blessed.  On  silent  hinges 
the  doors  swing  open,  and  I  pass  in." 

Ludlow  :  The  Hasheesh  Eater. 

Ailing  man  has  ransacked  the  world 

to  find  balms  to  ease  him  of  his  pains. 

And   this   is   only  natural,    for  what 

doth  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the 

v.'hole  world  and  lose  his  digestion? 

Let  the  tiniest  nerve  be  but  inflamed, 

and  it  will  bend  the  proudest  spirit: 

humble  is  a  hero  with  a  toothache !     It 

is  doubtful   if   Buddha  himself  could 

have  maintained  his  equanimity  with 

5 


6  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

a  bit  of  dust  on  his  conjunctiva.  Cae- 
sar had  a  fever — and  the  eye  that 
awed  the  world  did  lose  its  lustre,  and 
the  tongue  that  bade  the  Romans 
write  his  speeches  in  their  books  cried 
like  a  sick  girl.  Our  flesh  is  heir  to 
many  ills,  and  alas  when  the  heritage 
falls  due.  Even  pride  and  prejudice 
are  then  forgotten,  and  Irishmen  in 
need  of  purgatives  are  willing  to  use 
rhubarb  grown  on  English  soil,  while 
the  Foreign  Colombo  gathered  by  the 
feral  natives  in  the  untamed  forests  of 
Quilimani  is  consumed  by  ladies  who' 
never  saw  anything  wilder  than  a  Fa- 
bian Socialist. 

The  modern  descendant  of  Hip- 
pocrates draws  his  Materia  Medica 
from  the  uttermost  ends  of  the  earth: 
linseed  from  busy  Holland  and  floret- 
ted  marigold  from  the  exotic  Levant; 
cuckoo's  cap  from  little  Helvetia,  and 
pepper-elder  from  ample  Brazil;  bit- 
ing cubebs  from  spicy  Borneo  and 
fringed  lichens  from  raw-winded  Ice- 
land; sweet  flag  from  the  ponds  of 
Burmah,  coto  bark  from  the  thickets 
of  Bolivia,  sleeping  nightshade  from 
the  woods  of  Algeria,  brownish  rha- 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  7 

tany  from  the  sands  of  Peru,  purple 
crocus  from  the  pastures  of  Greece, 
aromatic  vanilla  from  the  groves  of 
Mexico,  golden  seal  from  the  retreats 
of  Canada,  knotty  aleppo  from  the 
plains  of  Kirghiz,  fever-tree  from  the 
hills  of  Tasmania,  white  saunders 
from  the  mountains  of  Macassar. 
Idols  are  broken  boldly  nowadays,  but 
the  daughter  of  ^sculapius  does  not 
fear,  for  Hygeia  knows  she  will  al- 
ways have  a  frenzied  world  of  wor- 
shippers to  kneel  at  her  every  shrine  in 
every  land. 

All  the  reservoirs  of  nature  have 
been  tapped  to  yield  medicines  for 
man.  From  the  mineral  kingdom  we 
take  the  alkali  metals,  the  nitrogen 
group,  the  compounds  of  oxygen,  the 
healing  waters,  the  halogens,  the  ni- 
trate of  silver,  the  sulphate  of  copper, 
the  carbonate  of  sodium,  the  chloride 
of  mercury,  the  hydroxide  of  potas- 
sium, the  acetate  of  lead,  the  citrate 
of  lithium,  the  oxide  of  calcium,  and 
the  similar  salts  of  half  a  hundred  ele- 
ments from  Aluminium  to  Zincum. 

From  the  vegetable  kingdom  we  ex- 
tract  the   potent  alkaloid;   all  things 


8  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

that  blossom  and  bloom,  we  knead 
them  as  we  list:  the  broad  rhizome  of 
iris,  the  wrinkled  root  of  lappa,  the 
inspissated  juice  of  aloes,  the  flower- 
heads  of  anthemis,  the  outer  rind  of 
orange,  the  inner  bark  of  cinnamon, 
the  thin  arillode  of  macis,  the  dense 
sclerotium  of  ergot,  the  ovoid  kernel 
of  nutmeg,  the  pitted  seed  of  rapa, 
the  pale  spores  of  club-moss,  the 
spongy  pith  of  sassafras,  the  bitter 
wood  of  quassia,  the  smoothish  bark 
of  juglans,  the  unripe  fruit  of  hem- 
lock, the  fleshy  bulb  of  scilla,  the  brit- 
tle leaves  of  senna,  the  velvet  thallus 
of  agaric,  the  balsamic  resin  of  ben- 
zoin, the  scaly  strobiles  of  hops,  the 
styles  and  stigmas  of  zea. 

The  animal  kingdom  has  likewise 
been  forced  to  bring  tribute  to  its  high- 
est brother:  we  use  in  medicine  the 
blood-sucking  leech,  the  natural  emul- 
sion from  the  mammary  glands  of  the 
cow,  the  internal  fat  from  the  abdo- 
men of  the  hog,  the  coppery-green 
Spanish  fly,  the  globular  excrements 
of  the  leaping  antelope,  the  fixed  oil 
from  the  livers  of  the  cod,  the  fresh 
bile  of  the  stolid  ox,  the  vitellus  of  the 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  9 

hen's  egg,  the  fatty  substance  from  the 
huge  head  of  the  sperm-whale,  the 
odorous  secretion  of  the  musk-deer, 
the  swimming-bladder  of  regal  fish, 
the  inner  layer  of  the  oyster-shell,  the 
branched  skeleton  of  the  red  polyp, 
the  dried  follicles  of  the  boring 
beaver,  the  bony  horns  of  the  crimson 
deer,  the  thyreoid  glands  of  the  simple 
sheep,  the  coagulated  serurn  from  the 
blood  of  the  horse,  the  wax  and  the 
honey  from  the  hive  of  the  busy  bee, 
and  even  the  disgusting  cockroaches 
that  infest  the  kitchen-shelves  and 
climb  all  over  the  washtubs  are  used 
as  a  diuretic  and  for  dropsy. 

Little  it  matters  by  whom  the  heal- 
ing agent  was  ushered  in,  for  mankind 
in  its  frantic  search  for  health  asks  not 
the  creed  or  color  of  its  medical  sav- 
ior: Pipsissewa  was  introduced  into 
medicine  by  the  redskins,  buchu  by 
the  hottentots,  quassia  by  a  negro 
slave,  zinc  valerianate  by  a  French 
prince,  krameria  by  a  Spanish  refugee, 
ipecac  by  the  Brazilian  aboriginecs, 
guaiac  by  a  syphilitic  warrior,  aspi- 
dium  by  a  Swiss  widow. 

"Medicine,"  wrote  the   greatest  of 


lO  AN    ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

literary  physicians,  "appropriates 
everything  from  every  source  that  can 
be  of  the  slightest  use  to  anybody  who 
is  aiHng  in  any  way,  or  like  to  be  ail- 
ing from  any  cause.  It  learned  from 
a  monk  how  to  use  antimony,  from  a 
Jesuit  how  to  cure  agues,  from  a  friar 
how  to  cut  for  stone,  from  a  soldier 
how  to  treat  gout,  from  a  sailor  how 
to  keep  off  scurvy,  from  a  postmaster 
how  to  sound  the  Eustachian  tube, 
from  a  dairy-maid  how  to  prevent 
small-pox,  and  from  an  old  market- 
woman  how  to  catch  the  itch-insect. 
It  borrowed  acupuncture  and  the 
moxa  from  the  Japanese  heathen,  and 
was  taught  the  use  of  lobelia  by  the 
American  savage." 

And  all  these  substances  are  daily 
being  powdered,  sifted,  granulated, 
desiccated,  percolated,  macerated,  dis- 
tilled, sublimed,  comminuted,  dis- 
solved, precipitated,  filtered,  strained, 
expressed,  clarified,  crystallized,  ig- 
nited, fused,  calcined,  torrified  and 
deflagrated  into  powders,  pills,  wafers, 
capsules,  ampoules,  extracts,  tinctures, 
infusions,  decoctions,  syrups,  cordials, 
essences,  magmas,   suppositories,  tab- 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  II 

lets,  troches,  ointments,  plasters,  ab- 
stracts, liniments,  collodions,  cata- 
plasms and  so  on  and  so  on. 

And  all  these  finished  preparations 
have  a  most  laudable  object  in  view — 
the  eradication  of  disease  and  the  alle- 
viation of  pain.  Ah,  this  is  indeed  a 
quest  worth  the  striving  for!  To  ac- 
complish the  quadrature  of  the  circle, 
or  ferret  out  the  secret  of  perpetual 
motion,  may  be  highly  interesting,  the 
of  problematical  value  only;  but  when 
a  clammy  sweat  bathes  the  brow,  and 
the  delicate  nerves  twitch  till  the  tor- 
tured human  frame  shakes  in  anguish, 
how  important  is  it  to  be  able  to  lift 
the  veil  from  a  condition  like  this! 
He  who  conquers  disease  is  greater 
than  the  builder  of  cities  or  the 
creator  of  empires.  His  value  is 
above  the  poets,  statesmen  cannot  be 
compared  unto  him,  educators  equal 
him  not  in  worth.  A  careful  econo- 
mist like  John  Stuart  Mill  tells  us  it  is 
doubtful  if  all  the  labor-saving  ma- 
chinery ever  invented  has  lessened  for 
a  single  day  the  work  of  a  single  hu- 
man being, — but  when  a  discovery  is 
made   in   medicine   it  becomes   a   sun 


12  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

which  sheds  its  beneficence  on  all  who 
suffer.  The  sick  pauper  of  to-day  ly- 
ing in  a  charity  hospital  receives  better 
medical  treatment  than  the  sick  poten- 
tate of  yesterday  lying  in  his  costly 
palace. 

But  so  far  medical  science  has  only 
unhorsed,  not  overthrown,  its  ancient 
antagonist.  In  spite  of  all  the  reme- 
dies, in  spite  of  all  the  research,  man- 
kind as  yet  possesses  no  satisfactory 
antidote  for  suffering;  it  knows  no 
drug  which  can  give  pain  its  conge  for 
more  than  a  transient  period. 

But  altho  the  time  of  relief  be  lim- 
ited, the  simple  fact  that  there  are  sub- 
stances which  do  have  some  power 
over  pain  is  sufficient  to  make  the 
study  of  narcotism  highly  important. 
And  of  all  the  narcotics — a  narcotic 
being  roughly  defined  as  a  substance 
which  relieves  pain  and  produces  ex- 
citability followed  by  sleep — none  is 
more  alluring  to  the  imagination  than 
the  intoxicating  hemp-plant,  scientifi- 
cally known  as  Cannabis  sativa  and 
popularly  famed  as  Hasheesh — those 
strange  flowering-tops  that  appeal  to  a 
pot-bellied  bushman  of  Australia  who 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  I3 

smokes  it  in  a  pipe  of  animal  tusks, 
and  to  so  hyper-esoteric  a  litterateur 
as  Charles  Baudelaire  of  the  Celestial 
City  of  Art. 

The  habitat  of  the  hemp-plant  is  ex- 
tensive: not  by  the  hand  of  man  were 
the  seeds  sown  that  gave  it  birth  near 
the  Caspian  Sea,  where  it  wildly  flour- 
ishes on  the  banks  of  the  immense 
Volga — that  mighty  mass  of  liquid 
ever  stupendously  rolling  thru  a  limit- 
less continent ;  it  climbs  the  Altai  range 
and  thrives  where  the  Himalaya  rears 
its  stony  head  ten  thousand  feet  on 
high;  it  extends  to  Persia,  and  China 
knows  it;  the  Congo  river  and  the  hot 
Zambesi  bathe  it  in  Africa,  it  is  not  a 
stranger  in  sunny  France,  and  how 
well  it  thrives  in  Kentucky  the  numer-" 
ous  readers  of  the  Reign  of  Law  wil! 
ever  remember. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  Rum- 
phius  noticed  that  there  were  differ- 
ences between  the  hemp  grown  in  In- 
dia and  the  hemp  grown  in  Europe. 
In  the  nineteenth  century  Lamarck  ac- 
cepted these  distinctions,  and  believing 
the  Indian  hemp  to  be  a  separate  spe- 
cies, agreed  in  calling  it  Cannabis  in- 


14  AN    ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

dica  as  a  distinction  from  the  Cannabis 
sativa  of  Linnaeus  and  Willdenow. 
But  it  is  now  conceded  that  from  a  bo- 
tanical standpoint  the  variations  are 
by  no  means  certain  or  important 
enough  to  warrant  the  maintenance  of 
Indian  hemp  as  a  species  distinct  from 
common  hemp.  And  as  the  greater 
includes  the  lesser,  in  botany  as  well 
as  in  geometry,  its  botanical  name  is 
Cannabis  sativa,  with  Cannabis  indica 
as  one  variety,  just  as  Cannabis  amer- 
icana  is  another  variety. 

The  hemp  grown  in  Russia  is  of  a 
fibrous  quality,  and  is  largely  used  for 
the  gallows — to  hang  the  opponents  of 
despotism.  In  England  many  a  bold 
highwayman  has  been  embraced  by  it 
the  last  moment  of  his  roving  life,  and 
has  thus  philanthropically  given  his 
mother-tongue  a  chance  to  enrich  her- 
self. For  instance,  a  hempie  means  a 
rascal  for  whom  the  hemp  grows;  a 
hempen  collar  means  the  hangman's 
noose;  a  hempen  widow  means  one 
whose  husband  has  been  hanged;  to 
sow  hemp  means  to  live  in  a  manner 
likely  to  lead  to  the  gallows.  Rope, 
however,  is  not  the  only  use  to  which 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  1 5 

the  fibers  can  be  put;  they  are  exten- 
sively employed  in  clothing,  and  in  the 
manufacture  of  paper. 

The  plant  is  also  cultivated  for  its 
seeds,  which  contain  a  large  quantity 
of  oil,  and  is  therefore  used  in  phar- 
macy for  emulsions,  and  in  the  domes- 
tic arts  because  of  its  drying  proper- 
ties. But  the  seeds  are  chiefly  used  as 
a  favorite  food  for  birds.  In  fact, 
some  birds  consume  them  to  excess, 
which  should  lead  us  to  suspect  that 
these  seeds,  tho  they  cannot  intoxicate 
us,  have  a  narcotic  effect  on  the  feath- 
ered creatures,  making  them  dream  of 
a  happy  birdland  where  there  are  no 
gilded  cages,  and  where  the  men  are 
gunless  and  the  women  hatless.  The 
seeds  also  contain  sugar  and  consider- 
able albumin, — making  them  very 
nutritious;  rabbits  eat  them  read- 
ily. They  are  consumed  also  by 
some  human  beings,  but  are  not  as 
good  as  the  sunflower  seeds  which 
Marianka  ceaselessly  and  carelessly 
crunched,  while  Olenine  looked  upon 
her  moving  lips  with  a  lover's  despair. 

The  medicinal  hemp — the  hemp  with 
the  potent  narcotic  principles — is  Can- 


l6  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

nabis  indica.  In  this  case  we  have  an 
example  of  Compensation  that  would 
have  made  Emerson's  eyes  glisten,  for 
altho  the  fibrous  texture  of  hemp  dis- 
appears under  a  southern  sun,  to  make 
up  for  the  loss  there  is  secreted  a  resin 
— Churrus.  This  resin  is  collected  in 
a  most  singular  manner.  During  the 
hot  season,  according  to  Dr.  O'Shaugh- 
nessy,  men  clothed  in  leather  run  vio- 
lently thru  the  hemp-fields  and  brush 
forcibly  against  the  plants.  The  soft, 
sticky  resin  adheres  to  the  garments, 
and  is  later  scraped  off  and  kneaded 
into  balls.  Dr.  M'Kinnon  informed 
Dr.  O'Shaughnessy  that  in  the  prov- 
ince of  Nipal  the  leather  attire  is  dis- 
pensed with,  and  that  the  natives  run 
naked  thru  the  hemp  fields,  gathering 
the  resin  on  their  bare  bodies. 

When  the  larger  leaves  turn  brown 
and  fall  to  the  ground,  it  is  an  indica- 
tion of  the  approach  of  maturity. 
The  flowering  tops  are  then  cut  off, 
and  subjected  to  a  process  of  rolling 
and  treading  by  trained  human  feet. 
The  hemp  is  placed  on  a  hard  floor 
surrounded  by  a  rail;  the  natives  take 
hold  of  a  revolving  post,  march  around 


AN    ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  1 7 

and  around,  singing  the  while,  and 
press  the  plants  in  a  technical  manner. 
Whether  the  perspiration  which  drips 
from  their  unshod  organs  of  locomo- 
tion works  any  chemical  change  in  the 
composition  of  Cannabis  has  not  yet 
been  determined  by  E.  M.  Holmes  or 
E.  W.  Dixon. 

It  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that  the 
dealing  in  Hasheesh  is  a  Government 
monopoly,  and  that  heavy  punishment 
is  meted  out  to  those  offenders  who 
buy  or  sell  it  without  permission. 
"The  importation  of  it  into  Egypt  is  so 
strongly  interdicted,"  explains  the  Dis- 
pensatory of  the  United  States,  "that 
the  mere  possession  of  it  is  a  penal  of- 
fense; we  found  it,  however,  readily 
procurable.  It  is  said  to  be  brought 
into  the  country  in  pigs'  bladders,  in 
the  Indo-European  steamers,  and 
thrown  out  at  night  during  the  passage 
into  the  Suez  canal,  to  be  picked  up  by 
the  boats  of  confederates."  This  de- 
plorable state  of  affairs  is  apt  to  re- 
mind us  of  our  own  temperance  towns 
— where  there  are  always  some  indi- 
viduals who  possess  the  faculty  of  ob- 
taining whisky  ad  libitum. 


l8  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

Cannabis  sativa  is  a  member  of  the 
MoracecE  or  Mulberry  Family,  which 
family  was  formerly  an  order  of  apet- 
alous  dicotyledenous  trees  or  shrubs, 
but  is  now  reduced  to  a  tribe  of  the 
Urticace^  or  Nettle  Family  which  em- 
braces no  genera  and  1500  species. 

Cannabis  is  an  annual  herb,  and  thus 
endures  but  one  year,  because  instead 
of  storing  away  nutritious  matter  in 
underground  bulbs  and  tubers  like  the 
industrious  biennials  or  perennials,  it 
exultingly  expends  its  new-born  en- 
ergy in  the  production  of  beautiful 
blossoms  and  the  maturation  of  fruit 
and  seed.  "This  completed,"  says  Asa 
Gray,  "the  exhausted  and  not  at  all  re- 
plenished individual  perishes." 

Sexually,  hemp  is  dioecious,  which 
means  that  its  staminate  and  pistillate 
organs  are  not  on  the  same  plant. 
When  cultivated  for  its  narcotic  prop- 
erties, only  the  flowering  tops  of  the 
unfertilized  female  plants  are  used,  and 
the  male  plants  are  eradicated  with 
great  care,  as  it  is  claimed  that  a  sin- 
gle one  can  spoil  an  entire  field — some- 
thing like  a  Boccaccion  gentleman  in  a 
nunnery.     The  process  of  weeding  out 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  I9 

the  males  is  performed  by  an  expert 
called  a  poddar,  who  brings  to  his  work 
a  conscious  technical  skill,  and  an  un- 
conscious but  interesting  argument  in 
illustration  of  what  Lester  F.  Ward 
has  described  as  the  Androcentric 
World  View,  for  the  poddar  deliber- 
ately reverses  the  names  of  the  sexes, 
and  designates  the  useful  females  as 
males,  and  calls  the  rejected  males  the 
females.  If  we  had  such  impudent 
poddars  in  the  animal  world,  no  doubt 
the  valuable  Miss  Jane  Addams  would 
be  metamorphosed  into  James,  while 
the  unnecessary  Mr.  Anthony  Com- 
stock  would  be  adorned  with  a  femi- 
nine appellation. 

Cannabis  is  from  4  to  12  feet  in 
height;  its  stem  is  angular,  branching, 
and  covered  with  matted  hairs;  its 
leaves  are  palmate  and  therefore 
roughly  resemble  an  open  hand;  its 
leaflets  are  lance-shaped,  possessing 
margins  dentated  with  saw-like  teeth; 
its  flowers  are  yellow  and  axillary,  the 
male  cluster  being  a  raceme  and  there- 
fore pedicelled,  and  the  female  a  spike 
and  consequently  sessile  or  stemless; 
the  five  male  organs  or  stamens  con- 


20  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

tain  pendulous  double-celled  sacs  or 
anthers ;  the  two  female  organs  or  pis- 
tils have  glandular  stigmas,  the  stigma 
being  the  spot  where  fertilization  oc- 
curs ;  the  fruit  is  a  gray  nut  or  achene, 
each  containing  a  single  oily  seed;  the 
whole  plant  is  covered  with  a  scarcely 
visible  down;  the  roughness  of  the 
leaves  and  stem  is  due  to  the  silica, 
which  is  a  characteristic  of  the  plants 
of  the  Moracecc. 

Not  much  need  be  said  of  the  micro- 
scopical characteristics  of  hemp,  for 
altho  the  powder  contains  several  his- 
tological elements,  as  pollen  grains, 
glands,  crystals,  resin,  fibres,  vessels, 
stone  cells,  epidermis,  parenchyma, — 
indicating  presence  of  stem,  leaf, 
flower,  seed, — its  characteristic  hairs 
or  trichomes  with  their  cystolith  de- 
posits are  of  sufficient  diagnostic  value 
to  make  it  readily  recognizable. 

Unfortunately,  when  we  come  to  the 
chemical  constituents  of  Cannabis,  cer- 
tainty is  at  an  end.  As  Dorvoult's 
L'OMcine  says,  "La  composition  chi- 
mique  du  cannabis  indica  est  male  con- 
nue."  The  conquests  of  man  are  pe- 
culiar :  he  lays  a  cable  under  the  roaring 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  21 

ocean,  and  he  flashes  his  messages  thru 
limitless  miles  of  space;  beneath  the 
surface  of  the  earth  he  rides  on  an  iron 
horse,  and  bird-like  he  sails  thru  the 
trackless  air.  But  put  this  common 
drug  before  him  and  he  cannot  deter- 
mine its  chemical  composition.  The 
careful  experimenters  and  the  expert 
assayers  are  balked. 

"I  have  extracted  an  alkaloid  from 
hasheesh,"  says  Preobraschensky,  "and 
it  is  fKDtent.'  "No,  we  have  found  the 
active  constituent,"  say  T.  and  H. 
Smith;  "it  is  the  resin  cannabin." 
"No,"  says  Personne,  "I  have  isolated 
the  important  ingredient;  it  is  the 
amber-colored  volatile  oil,  cannabene." 
"Oh,  no,"  says  Frankel,  "I  have  dis- 
•covered  the  active  principle — it  is  a 
phenol  aldehyde."  "No,  indeed,"  say 
Wood,  Spivey  and  Easterfield,  "it  is 
we  who  have  separated  the  only  active 
ingredient — it  is  a  red  oil,  cannabinol." 
"Oh,  not  at  all,"  says  Hamilton,  "not 
one  of  these  is  the  active  constituent; 
in  fact,  the  active  constituent  has  not 
yet  been  isolated."  In  such  an  arena, 
where  the  masters  dispute,  it  behooves 


22  AN    ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

the  amateur  to  speak  with  a  stammer- 
ing tongue. 

That  doubt  should  prevail  on  this 
subject  is  all  the  more  remarkable 
when  we  consider  that  hemp  has  been 
known  from  a  time  whereof  the  mind 
of  man  runneth  not  to  the  contrary — 
to  use  a  phrase  which  seems  to  delight 
the  lawyers.  In  the  Odyssey,  a  thou- 
sand years  before  the  advent  of  the 
Christian  era,  Homer  sang  of  the  as- 
suager  of  grief  or  Nepenthes,  which  is 
believed  to  have  been  the  hemp-plant. 
Hemp  thus  comes  ushered  into  history, 
held  in  the  beautiful  hand  of  Helen. 
Hesychius  narrates  that  the  Thracian 
women  made  sheets  of  hemp.  Pliny 
says  hemp  was  known  to  the  Romans, 
who  manufactured  cordage  from  it. 
The  Father  of  History  relates  that  the 
Scythians  threw  the  seeds  of  hemp  on 
red-hot  stones,  and  bathed  themselves 
in  the  vapor,  crying  with  exultation. 
Moschion  records  that  the  ship  Syra^ 
ciisia,  built  for  Hiero — kinsman  of 
Archimedes — ^was  rigged  with  hempen 
ropes.  In  the  most  ancient  of  all 
Hindu  medical  works,  Susruta,  hemp 
is  recommended  for  catarrh.    The  Pan- 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  23 

dit  Moodoosudun  Gooptu  found  in  the 
Rajnigiintu  a  clear  account  of  hemp. 
A  Sanscrit  work  on  Materia  Medica, 
Rajbuluhha,  alludes  to  the  use  of  hemp 
in  gonorrhea.  According  to  Kama- 
lakantha  Vidyalanka,  hemp  was  early 
forbidden  to  pious  Brahmins.  The  old 
Arabic  and  Persian  writers  made  num- 
erous references  to  cannabis,  and  de- 
clared its  narcotic  properties  were  dis- 
covered by  Haider.  Haider  was  a 
rigid  monk  who  built  a  monastery  on 
the  mountains  between  Nishabor  and 
Ramah.  For  ten  years  he  never  left 
his  hermitage,  never  indulged  in  even 
a  fleeting  moment's  pleasure.  One 
burning  summer's  day  when  the  fiery 
sun  glared  angrily  upon  Mother  Earth 
as  if  he  wished  to  wither  up  her 
breasts,  Haider  stepped  out  from  his 
cloister  and  walked  alone  to  the  fields. 
All  around  him  lay  the  vegetation 
weary  and  without  life,  but  one  plant 
danced  in  the  heat  with  joy.  Haider 
plucked  it,  partook  of  it,  and  returned 
to  the  convent  a  happier  man.  The 
monks  who  saw  him  immediately  no- 
ticed the  change  in  their  chief.  He  en- 
couraged conversation,  and  acted  bois- 


24  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

terously.  He  then  led  his  companions 
to  the  fields,  and  the  holy  men  partook 
of  the  hasheesh,  and  were  transformed 
from  austere  ascetics  into  jolly  good 
fellows.  At  the  death  of  Haider,  in 
conformity  with  his  desire,  his  disci- 
ples  planted   the    hemp   in   an   arbor 

around  his  tomb. In  that  portion 

of  the  Chinese  herbal,  Rh-ya,  which 
was  written  500  B.C.,  the  seed  and 
flower-bearing  kinds  of  hemp  are 
noticed.  In  the  first  century,  Diosco- 
rides — the  most  renowned  of  the  an- 
cient writers  on  Materia  Medica — rec- 
ommended the  seeds  in  the  form  of  a 
cataplasm  to  soothe  inflammation.  In 
the  second  century,  Galen  wrote 
that  it  was  customary  to  give 
hemp  to  guests  at  banquets  to  promote 
hilarity  and  happiness.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  third  century,  the  physician 
Hoa-Thoa  used  hemp  as  an  anesthetic 
in  surgical  operations.  In  the  thir- 
teenth century,  garments  of  hemp  be- 
came common  thruout  Southern  Eu- 
rope, and  it  may  well  be  that  Beatrice 
herself  wore  it  when  Dante  first  saw 
the  maiden  in  her  father's  house. 
There  is  a  remarkable  episode  in  the 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  2^ 

history  of  Hasheesh,  indicating  how 
the  character  of  a  people  may  be  af- 
fected by  the  surrounding  vegetation. 
Mohammedanism,  like  all  other  .  the- 
ologies, has  been  rent  by  schisms,  and 
the  question  as  to  who  was  the  legiti- 
mate successor  of  the  Prophet  split 
this  Oriental  faith  into  two  great  sects 
— the  Sunnis  and  the  Shiahs.  The 
latter  were  the  heretics,  as  they  con- 
sidered Mohammed's  son-in-law  the 
true  imam.  The  Shiahs  themselves 
were  further  subdivided  into  several 
parties,  the  Ismaelites  being  the  most 
important.  The  Ismaelites  were  es- 
pecially powerful  in  Persia,  and  later — 
thru  the  instrumentality  of  an  escaped 
prisoner  who  seized  the  throne — gained 
a  firm  foothold  in  Egypt.  A  grand 
lodge  was  formed  in  the  city  of  Cairo 
— on  the  banks  of  the  river  whose  an- 
cient waters  heard  the  hammering  at 
the  quarries  for  the  rearing  of  the 
Great  Pyramid.  Many  rules  were  now 
made  by  the  Ismaelites,  and  the  petty 
race  of  perishable  men  was  much  flus- 
tered, while  the  immortal  .Nile  flowed 
indift'erently  from  its  equatorial  cradle, 
refreshing    the    crimson    water-lilies, 


26  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

bathing  the  reeds  that  hned  its  shore, 
and  wetting  the  sands  where  the 
thoughtful  Sphinx  opens  not  its  lips. 

In  the  course  of  time  this  lodge  was 
visited  by  the  clever  Ismaelite,  Hassan 
Ben  Sabbah — a  boyhood  friend  of 
Omar  Khayyam — who  was  received 
with  acclamation.  Hassan  soon  re- 
ceived enough  honors  to  excite  jeal- 
ousy, and  while  plotting  for  more  power 
was  defeated  and  forced  to  disappear 
from  Egypt,  but,  after  traveling  awhile, 
he  settled  near  Kuhistan.  He  gathered 
around  him  a  considerable  number  of 
followers,  and  by  strategy,  in  1090, 
captured  the  powerful  Persian  fortress 
of  Alamut.  Hassan  now  introduced 
a  new  feature  into  his  society — the  em- 
ployment of  secret  murder  against  all 
enemies.  It  was  the  Sheikh  of  this 
organization  who  loomed  large  in 
medieval  folk-lore  as  the  Old  Man  of 
the  Mountains.  Many  young  men  be- 
came disciples,  and  willingly  performed 
the  bloody  work.  These  youths  were 
known  as  the  Fedais  or  Devoted  Ones. 
When  a  Devoted  One  was  selected  to 
commit  murder,  he  was  first  stupefied 
with  hasheesh,  and  while  in  this  state 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  2/ 

was  brought  into  the  magnificient  gar- 
dens of  the  sheikh.  All  the  sensual 
and  stimulating  pleasures  of  the  erotic 
orient  surrounded  the  excited  youth, 
and  exalted  by  the  delicious  hypnotic  he 
had  taken,  the  hot-blooded  fanatic  felt 
that  the  gates  of  heaven  were  already 
ajar,  and  heard  them  swing  open  on 
their  golden  hinges.  When  the  effect 
of  the  drug  disappeared  and  the  De- 
voted One  was  reduced  to  his  normal 
condition,  he  was  informed  that  thru 
the  generosity  of  his  superior  he  had 
been  permitted  to  foretaste  the  delights 
of  Paradise.  The  Devoted  One  be- 
lieved this  readily  enough — disciples 
are  always  credulous — and  therefore 
was  eager  to  die  or  to  kill  at  a  word 
from  his  ma,ster.  From  these  hasheesh- 
eaters,  the  Arabian  name  of  which  is 
hashshashin,  was  derived  the  term 
"assassin."  It  is  not  known  at  what 
date  the  epithet  was  first  applied  to 
other  secret  slayers.  The  Assassins 
soon  became  a  terrible  scourge,  and  the 
very  sands  of  the  desert  almost  learnt 
to  tremble  before  them.  Many  an  un- 
prepared breast  felt  their  daggers,  and 
many    a    surprised    stomach    tried    in 


28  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

vain  to  vomit  up  their  poisons.  Prince 
and  calif  they  struck  down,  and  more 
than  one  haughty  chief  paid  tribute 
to  the  Old  Man  of  the  Mountains. 
During  the  invasion  of  Palestine  by 
the  Crusaders,  the  Syrian  branch  of 
the  Assassins  reached  its  bloody  zenith, 
and  who  shall  say  how  many  high-born 
damsels  wept  for  knightly  shields  that 
lay  low  in  the  dust  of  Lebanon?  The 
power  of  the  Assassins  was  destroyed 
in  Persia  about  the  middle  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  and  some  years  later 
the  Mameluke  sultan  of  Egypt  exter- 
minated them  in  Syria.  But  just  as 
there  are  still  some  Innsbruck  Jesuits 
who  pray  for  the  revival  of  the  Spanish 
Inquisition,  so  some  remnants  of  the 
Assassins  yet  linger  between  the  Tig- 
ris river  and  the  mount  of  Taurus — 
but  what  of  that?  The  Old  Man  of 
the  Mountains  now  sleeps  in  Death's 
Valley,  and  not  all  the  hasheesh  from 
Bengal  could  exalt  him. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  when  Napoleon  invaded  Egypt 
— and  grew  philosophic  as  he  met  the 
gaze  of  the  prehistoric  pyramids — 
hasheesh  was  brought  prominently  to 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  29 

the  notice  of  Europeans  by  the  accounts 
of  DeSacy  and  Rouger.  By  this  time 
its  narcotic  properties  must  have  been 
known  to  the  Occidentals,  for  as  far 
back  as  1690  Berk:  in  his  Treasury  of 
Drugs  described  it  as  "of  an  infatuat- 
ing quality  and  pernicious  use." 
Nevertheless,  its  introduction  into  the 
Pharmacopeias  of  Europe  and  the 
United  States  is  due  mainly  to  the  elab- 
orate experimentation  carried  on  dur- 
ing 1839  and  several  succeeding  years 
by  the  talented  Dr.  William  B. 
O'Shaughnessy,  Professor  of  Chem- 
istry in  the  Medical  College  of  Cal- 
cutta. 

This  brings  us  to  the  physiological 
action  of  Cannabis.  It  primarily 
stimulates  the  brain,  has  a  mydriatic 
effect  upon  the  pupil,  slightly  accel- 
erates the  pulse,  sometimes  quickens 
and  sometimes  retards  breathing,  pro- 
duces a  ravenous  appetite,  increases 
the  amount  of  urine,  and  augments  the 
contractions  of  the  uterus.  In  other 
words,  it  has  an  effect  on  the  nervous, 
respiratory,  circulatory,  digestive,  ex- 
cretory and  genito-urinary  systems. 

As  a  therapeutic  agent  hasheesh  has 


30  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

its  eulogizers,  tho  like  many  other 
drugs  it  has  been  replaced  by  later 
remedies  in  various  disorders  for  which 
it  was  formerly  used.  Old  drugs, 
like  old  folks,  must  give  way  to  the 
new,  and  even  the  therapeutic  master- 
builders  must  beware  when  the  young 
generation  of  healing-agents  knocks  on 
the  door  of  health. 

In  medicinal  doses  Cannabis  is  used 
as  an  aphrodisiac,  for  neuralgia,  to 
quiet  maniacs,  for  the  cure  of  chronic 
alcoholism  and  morphine  and  chloral 
habits,  for  mental  depression,  hysteria, 
softening  of  the  brain,  nervous  vomit- 
ing, for  distressing  cough,  for  St. 
Vitus'  dance,  and  for  the  falling  sick- 
ness so  successfully  simulated  by  Kip- 
ling's Sleary — epileptic  fits  of  a  most 
appalling  kind.  It  is  used  in  spasm  of 
the  bladder,  in  migraine,  and  when  the 
dreaded  Bacillus  tetanus  makes  the 
muscles  rigid.  It  is  a  uterine  tonic, 
and  a  remedy  in  the  headaches  and 
hemorrhages  occurring  at  the  final 
cessation  of  the  menses.  It  has  been 
pressed  into  the  service  of  the  diseases 
that  mankind  has  named  in  honor  of 
Venus.     According  to  Osier,  cannabis 


AN    ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  3 1 

is  sometimes  useful  in  locomotor" 
ataxia.  Christison  reports  a  case  in 
which  Cannabis  entirely  cured  the  in- 
tense itching  of  eczema,  while  the  pa- 
tient was  enjoying  the  delightful  slum- 
ber which  the  hemp  induced.  It  is 
much  employed  as  an  hypnotic  in  those 
cases  where  opium  because  of  long-con- 
tinued use  has  lost  its  efficiency.  As  a 
specific  in  hydrophobia  it  is  sometimes 
marvelous,  for  Dr.  J.  W.  Palmer 
writes  that  he  himself  has  seen  a  sepoy, 
an  hour  before  furiously  hydrophobic, 
under  the  influence  of  cannabis  drink- 
ing water  freely  and  pleasantly  wash- 
ing his  face  and  hands!  Its  function 
in  this  unspeakable  affliction  should  be 
investigated  carefully,  for  it  will  be  a 
gala  day  for  mankind  when  it  can  cease 
to  fear  Montaigne's  terrible  line :  "The 
saliva  of  a  wretched  dog  touching  the 
hand  of  Socrates,  might  disturb  and 
destroy  his  intellect." 

The  official  definition  of  Cannabis 
indica  as  given  by  the  Eighth  Decen- 
nial Revision  of  our  Pharmacopeia  is 
as  follows :  "The  dried  flowering  tops 
of  the  pistillate  plants  of  Cannabis 
sativa  Linne  (Fam.  Moracecc),  grown 


32  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

in  the  East  Indies  and  gathered  while 
the  fruits  are  yet  undeveloped,  and 
carrying  the  whole  of  their  natural 
resin."  Three  preparations  of  the 
drug  are  official :  an  Extract,  a  Fluid- 
extract,  and  a  Tincture. 

In  the  last  (third)  edition  of  the 
National  Formulary,  hemp  enters  into 
four  galenicals :  in  chloral  and  bro- 
mine compound  which  is  used  as  a 
sedative  and  hypnotic,  in  chloroform 
Anodyne  which  is  used  in  diarrhoea 
and  cholera,  in  Brown  Sequard's  anti- 
neuralgic  pills,  and  in  corn  collodion. 
Hemp  is  a  constituent  in  the  majority 
of  corn  remedies.  Not  many  drugs 
are  used  for  both  the  brain  and  the 
feet,  but  with  cannabis  we  have  this 
anomaly:  a  man  may  see  visions  by 
swallowing  his  corn-cure. 

Out  of  the  enormous  number  of 
prescriptions  in  which  hasheesh  enters 
as  an  ingredient,  only  half  a  dozen  can 
be  here  represented.  In  Hager's 
Pharmaceutische  Praxis  occurs  this 
prescription  for  gonorrhea : 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  33 

Kali  nitrici 

Natri  nitrici  ana  5,0 

Extracti  Hyoscyami  0,5 

Aquae  Amygdalartim  amararum  10,0 

Emulsionis  Cannabis   fructus  200,0 

For  dysmenorrhea  the  Journal  de 
Medecin-e  de  Paris  recommends  the 
following  suppositories,  with  the  direc- 
tions that  one  be  introduced  every  even- 
ing, commencing  with  the  fifth  day  be- 
fore the  menses : 

Ex.  cannab.  indic?e gr.  -J 

Ex.  belladonn^e    gr.  ^ 

01.  theobrom ; q.  s. — M. 

For  phthisis,  when  accompanied  by 
insomnia  and  nervous  dyspepsia.  Dr. 
S.  G.  Bonney  prescribes: 

Strychnin,  sulph gr.  § 

Extracti  opii gr.  j 

Extracti  cannabis  indicse.  gr.  j  ss 

Salolis gr.  c. 

Aloini gr.  ss. — M. 

Pone  in  capsulas  No.  xx 

Dr.    Rankin   fights    dyspepsia   with 


34  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

the  following  formula,  one  capsule  be- 
ing given  after  meals : 

Zinci  valeratis    3j 

Acidi  carbolici gr.  xl 

Acidi  arsenosi   gr.  ss 

Extracti  cannabis  indicae.  gr.  v. — M. 

Pone  in  capsulas  No.  xx. 

When  a  patient  of  Van  Harlingen 

is  attacked  with  ichthyosis  hystrix,  the 

disagreeable    skin-disease    finds    itself 

daily  painted  with  this  preparation : 

Acid,  salicylici 3ss 

Ex.  cannabis  ind   •  -gr.  x- 

Collodii    fBj— M. 

Dr.  Da  Costa  endeavors  to  relieve 
impotence  by  giving  his  patients,  morn- 
ing and  evening,  this  pill: 

Ex.  cannabis  indicse .  . 

Ex.  nucis  vomicae aa  gr.  xv 

Ex.  ergotae  aquosi   5j. — M. 

Et.  ft.  pil.  No.  XXX 

The  results  of  the  prolonged  use  of 
large  doses  of  Cannabis  are  thus 
epitomized  by  Alfred  Stille:  "The 
habitual     use    of    this     drug    entails 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  35 

consequences  no  less  mischievous  than 
are  produced  by  alcohol  and  opium; 
the  face  becomes  bloated,  the  eyes  in- 
jected, the  limbs  weak  and  tremulous, 
the  mind  sinks  into  a  state  of  imbecil- 
ity, and  death  by  marasmus  is  the  ulti- 
mate penalty  paid  for  the  overstrained 
pleasure  it  imparts." 

Poisoning  by  hasheesh  is  treated  by 
the  administration  of  emetics  (what 
poison  isn't),  lemon-juice,  tannin,  cof- 
fee, ammonia,  strychnine,  atropine, 
spirit  of  nitrous  ether.  Electricity  and 
artificial  respiration  are  often  useful. 

A  strange  thing  about  hasheesh  is 
that  an  overdose  has  never  produced 
death  in  man  or  the  lower  animals. 
Not  one  authentic  case  is  on  record  in 
which  Cannabis  or  any  of  its  prepara- 
tions destroyed  life.  We  thus  have  a 
poison  which  lacks  a  maximum  and  a 
fatal  dose.  Indeed,  if  we  desire  to  be 
finical,  we  can  claim  that  according  to 
what  is  now  considered  the  best  defi- 
nition of  a  poison,  Cannabis  is  no  poi- 
son at  all,  for  the  aforesaid  best  defini- 
tion defines  a  poison  as  "any  substance 
which  is  capable  of  causing  death, 
otherwise  than  mechanically,  when  in- 


36  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

troduced  into  the  body  or  applied  to  it" 
— and  Cannabis  does  not  seem  capable 
of  causing  death  by  chemical  or  phy- 
siological action. 

"Hemp,"  says  Professor  Horatio  C. 
Wood,  "is  not  a  dangerous  drug;  even 
the  largest  doses  of  its  active  prepara- 
tions, altho  causing  most  alarming 
symptoms,  do  not  compromise  life." 

"We  have  never  been  able,"  testify 
Drs.  Houghton  and  Hamilton,  "to  give 
an  animal  a  sufficient  quantity  of  the 
drug  to  produce  death.  When  study 
of  the  drug  was  first  commenced,  care- 
ful search  on  the  literature  of  the  sub- 
ject was  made  to  determine  its  toxic- 
ity. Not  a  single  case  of  fatal  poison- 
ing have  we  been  able  to  find  reported, 
altho  often  alarming  symptoms  may 
occur.  A  dog  weighing  about  25 
pounds  received  a'n  injection  of  2 
ounces  of  the  U.  S.  P.  fluidextract  in 
the  jugular  vein,  with  the  expectation 
that  it  would  certainly  be  sufficient  to 
kill  the  animal.  To  our  surprise  the 
animal  after  being  unconscious  for 
about  a  day  and  a  half,  recovered  com- 
pletely.    Another  dog  received  about 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  37 

7  grams  of  the  solid  extract  with  the 
same  result." 

That  herbivorous  animals  are  even 
less  affected  by  it  I  know  from  my  own 
simple  experiments.  I  gave  a  rabbit  a 
drachm  and  a  half  of  the  fluidextract 
of  cannabis.  No  sooner  did  I  release 
the  animal  than  it  began  to  nibble  a 
commonplace  vegetable,  indifferent  to 
the  circumstance  that  it  had  been  bap- 
tised with  the  most  precious  opiate  of 
the  orient.  For  four  hours  I  watched 
this  member  of  the  genus  Lcpus,  but 
no  physical  effects  could  be  observed, 
while  the  mild  expression  of  its  gentle 
eyes  induced  me  to  conclude  that  all 
mental  manifestations  were  lacking  to 
such  a  degree  that  the  bunny  still  wor- 
shiped the  rather  material  trinity  of 
crackers,  carrots  and  cabbages.  This 
rabbit  was  sold  to  an  experienced 
dealer,  and  sometime  later  while  pass- 
ing the  store,  I  learnt  it  had  become 
the  sire  of  a  goodly  progeny,  but  what 
I  really  would  like  to  learn  is  this :  will 
those  little  innocent  rabbits — with  their 
asinine  ears  and  angelic  eyes — ever 
know  of  their  father's  enforced 
hasheesh  debauch? 


38  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

Few  creatures  have  so  slight  a  hold 
on  life  as  the  pretty  guinea-pig — which 
does  not  come  from  Guinea  and  is  not 
a  pig.  A  blow  of  the  hand,  a  bit  of 
moisture,  a  breath  of  cold,  and  their 
squealing  is  done.  But  they  do  not 
mind  cannabis.  I  chose  a  fine  fellow, 
anesthetized  his  glossy  back  with  ethyl 
chloride,  and  then  by  means  of  a  hy- 
podermic syringe  injected  100  minims 
of  the  powerful  fluidextract  into  his 
circulation.  There  were  no  results. 
After  the  elapse  of  some  hours  the  gen- 
erous cavy  SO  far  forgot  the  incident 
as  to  pull  some  sweet-pea  pods  from 
my  hand. 

Dr.  O'Shaughnessy  says  that  all  his 
experiments  "tended  to  demonstrate 
that,  while  carnivorous  animals  and 
fish,  dogs,  cats,  swine,  vultures,  crows, 
and  adjutants  invariably  and  speedily 
exhibited  the  intoxicating  influence  of 
the  drug,  the  graminivorous,  such  as 
the  horse,  deer,  monkey,  goat,  sheep, 
and  cow,  experienced  but  trivial  effects 
from  any  dose  we  administered." 
Lieutaud  and  Mabillat  say  the  same. 

Up  to  this  period  we  have  consid- 
ered hasheesh  from  the  historic,  bo- 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  39 

tanic,  microscopic,  chemic,  physiologic, 
therapeutic  and  pharmacologic  view- 
points: what  then  remains?  Why, 
friends,  the  best  is  yet  to  be,  the  last 
for  which  the  first  was  made — as 
Browning  would  say. 

Why  has  everyone  heard  of  opium? 
Because  of  its  somnifacient  and  myotic 
properties?  No,  but  because  sixty 
million  pounds  are  consumed  by  people 
for  the  purpose  of  pleasure.  It  is  the 
same  with  hasheesh.  All  heathens  use 
it  to  increase  their  joys:  Moors,  Mo- 
hammedans, Malays,  Burmese,  Siam- 
ese, Hindoos,  Hottentots,  Australian 
Bushmen  and  Brazilian  Indians — three 
hundred  millions  of  them.  The  grate- 
ful Orientals  have  endowed  their 
hasheesh  with  such  epithets  as  exciter 
of  desire,  increaser  of  pleasure,  cemen- 
ter  of  friendship,  leaf  of  delusion,  the 
laughter-mover,  causer  of  the  reeling 
gait.  "It  is  real  happiness,"  says  Mon- 
sieur Moreau,  and  Herbert  Spencer 
quotes  the  sentence  in  his  Principles  of 
Psychology, — "It  is  real  happiness 
which  hasheesh  causes." 

It  is  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  a 
powerful   narcotic   like   cannabis   will 


40  AN    ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

produce  uniform  results  in  all  in- 
stances, when  it  is  notorious  that  even 
coffee  affects  different  people  in  differ- 
ent ways ;  one  lady  drinks  tea  to  keep 
her  awake  at  night,  and  her  neighbor 
drinks  it  to  put  her  asleep ;  an  Havana 
cigar  irritates  Brown  and  tranquillizes 
Jones ;  a  glass  of  grog  causes  one  man 
to  beat  his  children,  and  induces 
another  to  give  away  his  coat  to  strang- 
ers. The  constitutional  peculiarity 
of  the  subject  must  always  be  taken 
into  consideration:  some  folks  are  so 
absurd  as  to  become  afflicted  with  net- 
tle-rash after  partaking  of  delicious 
strawberries ;  others  are  poisoned  by  an 
egg;  some  become  ill  in  the  presence  of 
the  violet,  and  others  faint  when  they 
smell  the  lily;  Tissot  mentions  a  per- 
son who  vomited  if  he  took  a  grain  of 
sugar ;  Louis  XIV  had  grand  manners, 
but  he  preferred  the  odor  of  cat's  urine 
to  that  of  the  red  rose.  "J^^k  Sprat 
could  eat  no  fat,  his  wife  could  eat  no 
lean."  Idiosyncrasy  may  not  be  the 
star  performer,  but  it  certainly  plays 
an  important  role  in  the  therapeutic 
drama. 
No    drug    in    the    entire    Materia 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  4I 

Medica  is  capable  of  producing  such 
a  diversity  of  effects  as  cannabis 
indica.  ''Of  the  action  of  hasheesh," 
writes  Professor  Stille,  "many  and 
various  descriptions  have  been  given 
which  differ  so  widely  among  them- 
selves that  they  would  scarcely  be 
supposed  to  apply  to  the  same  agent, 
had  we  not  every  day  a  no  less  re- 
markable instance  of  the  same  kind 
before  us  in  the  case  of  alcohol. 
As  the  latter  enlivens  or  saddens,  ex- 
cites or  depresses,  fills  with  tenderness, 
or  urges  to  brutality,  imparts  vigor  and 
activity,  or  nauseates  and  weakens,  so 
does  the  former  give  rise  to  even  a  still 
greater  variety  of  phenomena,  accord- 
ing to  the  natural  disposition  of  the 
person,  and  his  existing  state  of  mind, 
the  quantity  of  the  drug,  and  the  com- 
binations in  which  it  is  taken.". 

And  not  only  is  there  a  contrariety 
and  dissimilarity  of  action,  but  some- 
times there  is  no  action  at  all.  Canna- 
bis is  certainly  the  coquette  of  drug- 
dom.  Take  agaric,  and  it  will  stop 
your  perspiration — take  jaborandi,  and 
it  will  sweat  you  half  to  death;  take 
creosote,  and  it  will  prevent  emesis — 


42  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

take  ipecac,  and  it  will  vomit  you  till 
your  very  guts  cry  out  for  mercy ;  take 
eserine,  and  your  pupils  will  contract 
— take  atropine,  and  they  will  dilate; 
veratrine  will  make  you  sneeze,  the  dust 
of  sanguinaria  will  give  you  a  bloody 
nose,  aloes  will  act  on  your  lower 
bowel,  podophyllum  will  work  on  the 
upper,  squill  will  make  you  pass  water 
by  the  quart,  an  injection  of  strychnine 
will  stimulate  you,  a  dose  of  morphine 
will  put  you  in  the  arms  of  Morpheus, 
— but  take  cannabis,  and  who  can  pre- 
dict the  result?  It  may  do  wondrous 
things  to  you,  and  it  may  let  you  strictly 
alone. 

To  a  worker  on  the  Associated  Press 
named  I.  M.  Norr,  I  gave  30  minims 
of  the  fluidextract.  There  were  no 
results.  To  a  law  student  named 
Aaron  Wolman,  I  gave  40  minims. 
There  was  no  more  effect  than  if  he 
had  taken  40  drops  of  water.  It  must 
be  added,  however,  that  these  experi- 
menters, instead  of  putting  themselves 
in  a  receptive  state,  had  determined  be- 
forehand to  fight  the  influence  of  the 
drug.  On  the  evening  of  May  i8th, 
19 10,  I  gave  25  minims  to  Dr.  Anna 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  43 

Mercy,  and  altho  she  threw  herself  at 
the  shrine  of  science  in  a  way  that 
must  have  astonished  the  sober  old 
altar  of  experiment,  there  were  no  re- 
sults worth  mentioning,  except  that 
while  in  the  evening  she  looked  re- 
spectable, in  the  morning  she  looked 
disreputable. 

Had  all  my  experiments  turned  out 
thus,  this  essay  would  never  have  been 
written.  But  I  have  had  results  fully 
as  interesting  as  those  achieved  by 
O'Shaughnessy,  Moreau,  Mabillat, 
Reidel,  Schroff,  Wood,  Bell,  Christi- 
son,  Aubert,  and  many  others,  includ- 
ing our  gifted  traveler-poet  Bayard 
Taylor. 

My  brother  Frederic  Robinson 
took  25  minims  in  the  presence  of  some 
ladies  whom  he  had  invited  to  witness 
the  fun.  An  hour  passed  without  re- 
sults. A  second  hour  followed,  but — 
to  use  the  slang  of  the  street — there 
was  nothing  doing.  The  third  hour 
promised  to  be  equally  fruitless,  and 
as  it  was  already  late  in  the  evening, 
the  ladies  said  good-by.  No  sooner 
did  they  leave  the  room,  than  I  heard 
the   hasheesh-laugh.     The   hemp   was 


44  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

doing  its  work.  In  a  shrill  voice  my 
brother  was  exclaiming,  "What  foo- 
oolish  people,  what  foo-oo-ool-ish 
people  to  leave  just  when  the  show  is 
beginning."  The  ladies  came  back. 
And  it  was  a  show.  Frederic  made 
Socialistic  speeches^  and  argued  warmly 
for  the  cause  of  Woman  Suffrage. 
-He  grew  most  affectionate  and  insisted 
on  holding  a  lady's  hand.  His  face 
was  flushed,  his  eyes  were  half  closed, 
his  abdomen  seemed  uneasy,  but  his 
spirit  was  happy.  He  sang,  he 
rhymed,  he  declaimed,  he  whistled,  he 
mimicked,  he  acted.  He  pleaded  so 
passionately  for  the  rights  of  Human- 
ity that  it  seemed  he  was  using  up  the 
resources  of  his  system.  But  he  was 
tireless.  With  both  hands  he  gesticu- 
lated, and  would  brook  no  interruption. 
Peculiar  ideas  suggested  themselves. 
For  instance,  he  said  sometli^ng  was 
"sheer  nonsense,"  and  then  reasoned  as 
follows :  "Since  shears  are  the  same  as 
scissors,  instead  of  sheer  nonsense  I 
can  say  scissors  nonsense."  He  als'o 
said,  "I  will  give  you  a  kick  in  the 
tickle" — and  was  much  amused  by  the 
expression. 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  45 

At  all  times  he  recognized  those 
about  him,  and  remained  conscious  of 
his  surroundings.  When  the  approach 
of  dawn  forced  the  ladies  to  depart, 
Frederic  made  a  somewhat  unsavory 
joke,  and  immediately  exclaimed  tri- 
umphantly, "I  wouldn't  have  said  that 
if  the  ladies  were  here  for  a  million 
dollars."  Someone  yawned  deeply,  and 
being  displeased  by  the  unexpected  ap- 
pearance of  a  gaping  orifice,  Frederic 
melodramatically  gave  utterance  to 
this  Gorky-like  phrase:  "From  the 
depths  of  dirtiness  and  despair  there 
rose  a  sickly  odorous  yawn" — and  in- 
stantly he  remarked  that  the  first  por- 
tion of  this  sentence  was  alliterative! 
Is  it  not  strange  that  such  consciousness 
and  such  intoxication  can  exist  in  the 
same  brain  simultaneously? 

The  next  day  he  remembered  all  that 
occurred,  was  in  excellent  spirits, 
laughed  much  and  easily,  and  felt  him- 
self above  the  petty  things  of  this 
W'orld. 

On  ]\Iay  19th,  19 10,  this  world  was 
excited  over  the  visit  of  Halley's  comet. 
It  is  pleasant  to  remember  that  the 
celestial   guest  attracted  as  much  at- 


46  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

tention  as  a  political  campaign  or  a 
game  of  baseball.  On  the  evening  of 
this  day,  at  lo  o'clock,  I  gave  45 
minims  to  a  court  stenographer  named 
Henry  D.  Demuth.  At  11.30  the  ef- 
fects of  the  drug  became  apparent,  and 
Mr.  Demuth  lost  consciousness  of  hisi 
surroundings  to  such  an  extent  that  he 
imagined  himself  an  inhabitant  of  Sir 
Edmund  Halley's  nebulous  planet. 
He  despised  the  earth  and  the  dwellers 
thereon;  he  called  it  a  miserable  little 
flea-bite,  and  claimed  its  place  in  the 
cosmos  was  no  more  important  than 
a  flea- jump.  With  a  scornful  finger 
he  pointed  below,  and  said  in  a  voice 
of  contempt,  "That  little  joke  down 
there,  called  the  earth." 

"Victor,"  he  said,  "you're  a  fine 
fellow,  you're  the  smartest  man  in 
Harlem,  you've  got  the  god  in  you, 
but  the  best  thoughts  you  write  are  low 
compared  to  the  things  we  think  up 
here."  A  little  later  he  condescended 
to  take  me  up  with  him,  and  said,  "Vic- 
tor, we're  up  in  the  realm  now,  and 
w^e'll  make  money  when  we  get  down 
on  that  damned  measly  earth  again; 
they  respect  Demuth  on  earth." 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  4/ 

He  imitated  how  Magistrate  Butts 
calls  a  prisoner  to  the  bar.  "Butts," 
he  explained,  "is  the  best  of  them. 
Butts— Buts— cigarette-butts."  If  this 
irrelevant  line  should  ever  fall  beneath 
the  dignified  eyes  of  His  Honor,  in- 
stead of  fining  his  devoted  stenog- 
rapher for  contempt  of  court,  may  he 
bear  in  his  learned  mind  the  fact  that 
under  the  influence  of  narcotics  men 
are  mentally  irresponsible. 

By  this  time  Mr.  DeMuth's  vanity 
was  enormous.  "God,  Mark  Twain 
and  I  are  chums,"  he  remarked  cas- 
ually. "God  is  wise,  and  I  am  wise. 
And  to  think  that  people  dictate  to 
me!" 

He  imagined  he  had  material  for  a 
great  book.  "I'm  giving  you  the 
thoughts;  slap  them  down,  we'll  make 
a  fortune  and  go  whacks.  We'll  make 
a  million.  I'll  get  half  and  Vic  will 
get  half.  With  half  a  million  we'll 
take  it  easy  for  a  while  on  this  damned 
measly  earth.  We'll  live  till  a  hundred 
and  two,  and  then  we'll  skedaddle  di- 
doo.  At  one  hundred  and  two  it  will 
be  said  of  Henry  Disque  Demuth  that 
he  shuffled  off  this  mortal  coil.     We'll 


48  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

skip  into  the  great  idea — hooray! 
horray!  Take  down  everything  that 
is  Significant — with  an  accent  on  the 
cant — Immanuel  Kant  was  a  wise  man, 
and  I'm  a  wise  man;  I  am  wise,  be- 
cause I'm  wise." 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  in  spite  of 
all  the  gabble  concerning  the  volume 
that  was  to  make  both  of  us  rich,  not 
even  one  line  was  dictated  by  the  in- 
spired author.  In  fact  he  got  no  fur- 
ther than  the  title,  and  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  of  all  titles  in  the  world, 
this  is  the  least  catchy.  It  is  as  fol- 
lows: "Wise  is  God;  God  is  Wise." 

Later  came  a  variation  in  the  form 
of  a  hissing  sound  which  was  meant 
to  be  an  imitation  of  the  whizzing  of 
Halley's  comet;  there  was  a  wild 
swinging  of  the  sheets  as  a  welcome  to 
the  President;  a  definition  of  religion 
as  the  greatest  joke  ever  perpetrated; 
some  hasheesh-laughter;  and  the  utter- 
ance of  this  original  epigram :  Shake- 
speare, seltzer-beer,  be  cheerful. 

A  little  later  all  variations  ceased, 
for  the  subject  became  a  monomaniac, 
or  at  any  rate,  a  fanatic.  He  became 
thoroly  imbued  with  the  great  idea 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  49 

that  the  right  attitude  to  preserve 
towards  life  is  to  take  all  things  on 
earth  as  a  joke.  Hundreds  and  hun- 
dreds and  hundreds  of  times  he  re- 
peated: "The  "idea  of  the  great  idea, 
the  idea  of  the  great  idea,  the  idea  of 
the  great  idea."  No  question  could 
steer  him  out  of  this  track.  "Who's 
up  on  the  comet?  Any  pretty  girls 
there?"  asked  Frederic.  "The  great 
idea  is  up  there,"  was  the  answer. 

"Where  would  you  fall  if  you  fell 
off  the  comet  ?" 

"I'd  fall  into  the  great  idea." 

"W^hat  do  you  do  when  you  want  to 
eat  and  have  no  money?" 

"You  have  to  get  the  idea." 

"When  will  you  get  married?" 

"When  I  get  the  idea." 

Midnight  came,  and  he  was  still 
talking  about  jiis  great  idea.  At  one 
o'clock  I  felt  bored.  "If  you  don't 
talk  about  anything  else  except  the 
idea,  we'll  have  to  quit,"  I  said. 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "we'll  all  quit, 
we'll  all  be  wrapped  up  in  the  great 
idea."  He  took  out  his  handkerchief 
to  blow  his  nose,  remarking,  "The  idea 
of    my    nose."     I    approached    him. 


50  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

"Don't  interfere,"  he  cried,  "I'm  off 
with  the  great  idea." 

I  began  to  descend  the  stairs.  When 
half  way  down  I  stopped  to  listen. 
He  was  still  a  monomaniac.  Had  he 
substituted  the  word  thought  or  theory 
or  conception  or  notion  or  belief  or 
opinion  or  supposition  or  hypothesis 
or  syllogism  or  tentative  conjecture,  I 
would  have  returned.  But  as  I  still 
heard  only  the  idea  of  the  great  idea, 
I  went  to  bed. 

In  the  morning  his  countenance  was 
ashen,  which  formed  a  marked  con- 
trast to  its  extreme  redness  the  even- 
ing before.  He  should  have  slept 
longer,  but  I  thought  of  the  duties  to 
be  performed  for  Judge  Butts,  and  de- 
termined to  arouse  him,  altho  I  knew 
my  touch  would  cast  him  down  from 
the  glorious  Halley's  comet  to  the 
measly  little  flea-bite  of  an  earth,  be- 
sides jarring  the  idea  of  the  great  idea. 

So  I  shook  him,  but  instead  of  man- 
ifesting anger,  he  smiled  and  extended 
his  hand  cordially,  as  if  he  had  not 
seen  me  for  a  long  time.  The  effects 
of  the  drug  had  not  entirely  disap- 
peared, and  his  friends  at  work  thought 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  '5 1 

him  drunk,  and  asked  with  whom  he 
had  been  out  all  night.  Mr.  Demuth 
was  in  first-class  spirits,  he  bubbled 
over  with  idealism,  and  felt  a  con- 
tempt for  all  commercial  transactions. 
He  was  the  American  Bernard  Shaw, 
and  looked  upon  the  universe  as  a  joke 
of  the  gods.  While  adding  some 
figures  of  considerable  importance 
— as  salaries  depended  upon  the  re- 
sults— a.  superintendent  passed.  Mr. 
Demuth  pointed  to  the  column  that 
needed  balancing,  and  asked,  "This  is 
all  a  joke,  isn't  it?"  Not  appreciat- 
ing the  etiology  of  the  query,  the  super- 
intendent nodded  and  passed  on. 

One  midnight,  while  preparing  to  re- 
tire, it  occurred  to  Courtenay  Lemon 
that  this  was  a  good  time  for  him  to  try 
hasheesh.  As  I  did  not  discourage 
him  in  the  slightest  degree,  30  minims 
were  forthwith  swallowed,  with  the 
result  that  the  Socialist  dramatic  critic 
spent  an  unusual  night.  It  must  be  re- 
marked that  over  the  bed  on  which  he 
lay  hangs  a  portrait  of  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson.  For  an  hour  and  a  quarter 
we  discussed  various  topics  of  mutual 


'52  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

interest,  such  as  decadent  poetry,  and 
Marx's  influence  on  the  revolutionary 
youth  of  Russia.  The  conversation 
was  cut  short  by  the  hasheesh-laugh. 

It  had  begun:  the  flood  of  laughter 
was  loose,  the  deluge  of  mirth  poured 
forth,  the  cascade  of  cachinnation 
rushed  on  till  it  swelled  into  a  torrent 
of  humor  while  the  waves  of  snicker- 
ing and  tittering  mingled  with  the 
freshets  of  hilarity  and  jollity  till  the 
whole  flowed  into  a  marvelous  Niagara 
of  merriment.  What  a  pity  the  audi- 
ence was  so  small !  What  a  shame  the 
old  humorists  could  not  be  present! 
How  the  belly  of  Aristophanes  would 
have  thundered  a  loud  papapappax, 
how  Scarron  would  have  grinned,  how 
Sydney  Smith  would  have  enoyed  it, 
how  Tom  Moore  would  have  held  his 
aching  sides,  how  Rabelais  would  have 
raised  the  rafters  with  his  loud  ho-ho- 
hos !  But  as  these  gentlemen  were  un- 
avoidably detained  elsewhere,  I  must 
testify  that  it  was  the  funniest  show  on 
earth, — so  here's  to  you,  Courtenay 
Lemon,  you  Leyden  jar  of  laughter, 
charged  to  the  limit. 

Never  having  been  a  disciple  of  good 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  53 

old  Isaac  Pitman,  I  could  not  record 
all  that  was  said,  but  here  are  my 
notes:  "I  feel  a  satisfaction,"  he  says, 
"in  seeing  Emerson's  picture,  as  I  al- 
ways felt  like  laughing  at  him."  Rolls 
on  the  bed  and  laughs  uncontrollably. 
"It  makes  my  face  tired,"  he  explains. 
In  reply  to  my  question,  he  answers 
that  he  enjoys  laughing.  Begins  to 
expound  something,  but  is  stopped  by  a 
laughing  fit.  Says  he  would  like  to 
have  his  photo  taken  now,  and  then 
laughs  immoderately.  Says  it  doesn't 
seem  so  much  like  laughing  as  like  let- 
ting wind  out  of  a  bag.  Says  it  is 
worth  while  staying  up  to  see  such  a 
show.  Giggles  terrifically.  Says 
"Open  the  window,  as  I  am  using  up 
all  the  air."  Laughs  loud  and  long. 
Strangely  enough  his  laughter  begins  to 
sound  exactly  like  a  negro's,  as  repre- 
sented on  the  stage.  He  recognizes 
this  and  says  "I'se  laughin'  now  jes' 
like  a  niggah."  He  is  extraordinar- 
ily comical.  From  top  to  bottom  his 
body  is  shaking  with  laughter.  He 
twirls  his  arms,  kicks  his  feet,  and  for 
the  first  time  I  understand  what  Milton 


54  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

meant  when  he  wrote  "the  light  fantas- 
tic toe." 

"I  feel  as  if  any  way  I  put  my  leg 
I  have  to  keep  it.  If  I  stuck  it  in  the 
air  and  kept  it  there — wouldn't  that  be 
funny?"  Loud  laughing.  Imitates 
the  music  of  a  military  band.  His 
eyes  glisten  with  pleasure,  his  whole 
countenance  is  beaming,  and  he  seems 
infinitely  delighted  with  himself.  "For- 
ward march!"  he  exclaims.  He  plays 
a  fife  and  beats  a  drum :  Boom !  Boom ! 
Boom !  Says  sternly,  "I  don't  want 
this  band  to  play  any  patriotic  air,  not 
even  in  my  sleep." 

"Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  tell  you  a 
story.  You  think  I'm  a  damn  fool, 
don't  you?"  Laughter.  "This  re- 
minds me  of  a  story."  Laughter. 
"O  what  a  damn  fool  am  I !"  Laugh- 
ter. "I'm  going  to  tell  that  story,"  he 
says  determinedly.  Makes  several  at- 
tempts, but  it  is  a  difficult  feat,  on  ac- 
count of  the  frequent  outbursts  of 
laughter,  and  because  it  is  next  to  im- 
possible for  him  to  concentrate  his 
thoughts.  At  last  he  gets  this  out :  "A 
man  said  he  hadn't  laughed  so  much 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  55 

since  his  mother-in-law  died.  Oh, 
how  funny!" 

"Mr.  Courtenay  Lemon :  Imitation 
of  laughter.  Pretty  good,  eh?" 
Makes  a  speech,  imitates  the  gestures, 
and  bows  as  politely  as  it  is  possible 
for  one  who  is  stretched  out  in  bed. 

"This  would  be  a  good  dope  to  try 
on  a  fellow  who  is  accused  of  having 
no  sense  of  humor.  Oh,  I'm  getting 
funnier  every  minute." 

"Emerson,  O  you,  you  were  a  kid 
once  too,  weren't  you?  I  don't  be- 
lieve you  ever  were.  If  I  had  a  rotten 
tgg  I'd  throw  it  at  you." 

"There's  a  blue  phosphorescent  light 
in  your  face, — ." 

"I'd  rather  laugh  than  vomit  any 
day."  Strikes  the  bowl  which  was 
placed  near  him  in  case  the  cannabis 
produced  emesis.  "But  I'm  not  a  dog 
and  I'll  not  return  to  my  vomit.  That 
dog  was  a  damn  fool.  There  are  a  lot 
of  things  in  the  Bible  that  are  damn 
fool  things." 

"I've  been  doing  all  sorts  of  laugh- 
ter. Couldn't  you  have  a  system  of 
prosody,  and  divide  it  off  into  feet  like 
poetry,    and    have   a    Laughing    Poet 


56  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

whose  contributions  would  be  accepted 
by  the  comic  papers?"  Whistles  and 
sings  and  drums  rhythmically  with  his 
finger-tips  on  the  bowl. 

When  I  confirm  a  statement  of  his 
by  answering  "Yes,"  he  says,  "Don't 
be  butting  in,  Victor,  this  is  my  show." 
Points  his  finger  at  me  and  laughs. 
Sensations  must  be  very  acute,  for 
while  clearing  my  throat  to  say  some- 
thing, but  before  uttering  anything,  he 
hears  me  and  exclaims.  "There  you 
go,  butting  in  again.  But  don't  be 
afraid,  I'm  not  getting  pugnacious ;  it 
all  ends  in  laughter."  But  for  a  mo- 
ment does  become  quarrelsome. 

"I  had  a  good  thought,  but  I  don't 
know  what's  best:  to  stick  to  the 
thought  or  stick  to  the  laughter?  " 

"If  Chauncey  Depew  should  be 
wrecked  in  the  New  York  Central, 
wouldn't  that  be  funny?  Would  it  be 
poetic  justice?  No,  it  would  be  the 
justice  of  laughter.  Oh,  it  would  be 
the  laughter  of  the  gods!"  He  raises 
himself  and  swings  his  arm  dramatic- 
ally. Laughter  leaps  from  his  insides 
as  if  it  were  a  geyser  spouting  up,  and 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  57 

rushes  from  his  lips  as  if  it  were  a 
cataract  bounding  down  a  boulder. 

He  theorizes  about  egoism  and  Max 
Stirner,  but  I  can  not  jot  down  the 
reflection  in  its  entirety. 

He  says  I  have  no  sense  of  humor 
to  sit  there  taking  notes,  instead  of 
joining  him  in  laughing. 

"Of  course  you  understand  why  I 
am  laughing.  But  your  old  cook — if 
she  hears  me,  she'll  send  for  the  police." 

"It's  too  bad  that  when  I'm  having 
such  a  good  time,  I  should  be  troubled 
by  a  dry  taste  in  the  mouth.  It's 
another  evidence  that  the  world  was 
created  by  a  damn  fool  or  a  lunatic. 
There  is  always  some  little  thing  that 
interferes." 

Talks  sensibly  awhile,  and  then  says 
impatiently:  "I  want  to  stop  all  this 
talking,  and  get  to  laughing  again. 
I'm  not  complaining  about  the  effects 
from  hasheesh,  because  I  consider  it 
worth  everything." 

"Oh,  tell  me,  pretty  maiden,  why 
can't  a  little  canary  bird  whistle  a 
symphony,  for  instance,  Tchaykov- 
sky's  Le  Pathetiqiie?"  Whistles, 
waves    his    hand    fantastically.     "As 


58  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

damn  little  as  I  know  about  music,  not 
having  been  gifted  by  nature  in  that 
direction" — twists  his  arms  in  a  gro- 
tesque manner — "I'm  able  to  get  a 
bunch  out  of  Tchaykovsky.  I  don't 
mean  Comrade  Tchaykovsky,  the  rev- 
olutionist in  Russia,  I  mean  Peter 
Hitch  Tchaykovsky.  The  itch  of  that 
Hitch — it  seems  like  a  personal  ail- 
ment, it  sounds  insulting." 

Throws  a  piece  of  paper  at  me,  but 
says,  "Don't  be  afraid,  I'll  break  no 
bones." 

I  ask  him  to  tell  the  time.  He  gazes 
intently  at  the  clock,  and  says,  "I  want 
to  get  it  exactly  on  the  fraction  of 
a  second.  But  it  changes  so  quickly,  I 
can't."    Gives  it  up  in  disgust. 

Claims  a  heavy  feeling  is  creeping 
over  him,  and  wonders  if  it  is  due  to 
increased  blood-pressure.  "But  what 
am  I  beginning  to  talk  serious  for?  I 
could  keep  on  laughing  for  a  couple 
of  weeks,  except  that  I  don't  want  to 
keep  you  up.'" 

"If  Spencer  had  been  more  of  a  sport 
and  had  taken  some  of  this  stuff,  he 
would  have  had  material  for  his  essay, 
The   Physiology    of   Laughter."     To 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  59 

see  a  man  drugged  with  hasheesh  quot- 
ing the  profoundest  of  synthetic  phi- 
losophers is  too  much  for  my  gravity, 
and  for  a  moment  my  scream  of  laugh- 
ter eclipses  even  his. 

"Ah,  I'm  beginning  to  get  light 
again.  It's  much  nicer  to  be  light  and 
delicate.  To  be  a  filmy  butterfly,  and 
float  in  fancy," — his  face  assumes  an 
expression  of  poetic  beauty,  and  he 
speculates  whether  man  should  live  a 
life  of  beauty  or  of  duty. 

"Oh,  I'm  willing  to  laugh  .  .  ." 
Throws  off  the  blankets  and  cries, 
"Throw  off  the  bonds  of  all  existence !" 

I  ask  him  what  day  it  is.  "I  hope," 
says  he,  with  a  melodramatic  wave 
of  the  hand,  "I  will  express  the  mod- 
est hope,  that  in  accordance  to  my 
wishes,  and  in  conformity  to  my  de- 
sires, it  is  Sunday  night!  Sunday 
night!  Sunday  night!" 

Sits  up,  looks  at  me  roughishly  and 
laughs. 

"I  feel  a  metalliferous  touch  with- 
in me."  "I'd  rather  have  a  cramp  in 
my  leg  than  in  my  brain.  Some 
people  would  call  this  a  brain-cramp. 


6o  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

wouldn't  they?"  Laughs,  kicks  up 
his  legs. 

"If  you  got  erotic  while  laughing, 
wouldn't  it  be  blasphemy  ?  Worse  than 
laughing  in  church." 

"Have  no  illusions  of  death  yet.  I 
am  still  in  a  position  to  laugh  death 
in  the  face,  to  laugh  death  in  the  face, 
to  laugh  .  .  ." — and  he  proves  it. 
He  claps  his  hands  together  merrily. 

Has  a  lucid  moment,  looks  at  the 
clock,  and  says  simply  and  correctly, 
"lo  to  3." 

Imitates  a  Frenchman  most  admir- 
ably, accent,  gestures,  etc. 

The  door  opens,  and  my  father — 
who  has  found  it  impossible  to  sleep 
with  a  roaring  volcano  in  the  house 
— enters.  I  ask  Mr.  Lemon  to  tell 
my  father  about  Chauncey  Depew  and 
the  Grand  Central.  Mr.  Lemon  is 
highly  pleased,  and  repeats  the  story 
with  intense  zest.  He  enlarges  it,  and 
claims  Depew  has  got  Elbert  Hubbard 
beat  as  a  hypocrite.  He  says  all  who 
believe  Depew  deserves  to  be  killed 
should  signify  it  by  saying  Aye,  and 
then  he  himself,  as  if  he  were  a  whole 
assembly,  shouts  out,  Aye!  Aye!  Aye! 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  6 1 

"The  Ayes  have  it,"  he  announces  with 
the  air  of  a  man  who  has  just  won 
an  important  victory.  My  father  and 
I  laugh  heartily.  There  is  no  limit 
to  jMr.  Lemon's  happiness.  "That's 
right,"  he  says,  "it's  good,  take  it 
down,  old  man." 

He  cannot  bear  a  moment's  absti- 
nence from  laughter.  "Cast  aside  all 
irrelevant  hypotheses,  and  get  to  the 
laughing.  I  proclaim  the  supremacy 
of  the  laugh,  laughter  inextinguish- 
able, laughter  eternal,  the  divine  laugh- 
ter of  the  gods." 

My  father  leaves  the  room.  "Every- 
thing has  a  comic  element  if  you  look 
at  it  right.  It  seemed  to  me  that  your 
father  went  down  into  the  cellar  be- 
cause he  couldn't  sleep  on  account  of 
my  damn  foolishness."  He  wallows 
in  amusement,  but  at  the  same  time 
expresses  sincere  regret  that  he  is  pre- 
venting my  father  and  me  from  sleep- 
ing, and  says  next  time  he  will  take 
hasheesh  in  the  daytime. 

My  father  re-enters,  and  desires  to 
feel  his  pulse.  At  first  Mr.  Lemon 
objects  vehemently  to  being  touched, 
but  then  smiles  the  sweetest  of  smiles, 


62  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

and  with  the  demeanor  of  a  martyred 
Bruno  marching  to  the  stake,  stretches 
forth  his  hand,  saying,  "In  the  in- 
terests of  science  I  am  wilHng."  But 
after  a  few  seconds  Mr.  Lemon  pulls 
his  hand  impatiently  away,  and  ex- 
claims angrily,  "You've  been  holding 
it  half  an  hour."     His  pulse  is  about 

lOO. 

"Come  on  in,  the  hasheesh  is  fine! 
You  laugh  and  laugh  and  laugh  and 
laugh  like  an  imbecile.  Who  can 
laugh  in  more  ways  than  me?  Not 
any  fellow  that  I  can  see." 

Begins  to  philosophize  about  sav- 
ages, but  loses  the  thread  of  his 
thoughts.  I  remind  him  what  he  was 
talking  about;  he  thinks  a  moment, 
taps  his  forehead  significantly,  and 
says,  "There  was  a  laugh  there  before, 
and  now  I've  lost  it." 

"Every  tick  of  the  clock  is  another 
instant  that  you're  wasting  time  over 
this  damn  foolishness." 

"Laughter  is  indisputable  and  for 
its  own  sake.  I  proclaim  the  laugh 
for  the  laugh's  sake."  The  English 
tongue  is  insufficient  for  him;  he  coins 
words  of  his  own:  "Laughfinity!"  he 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  63 

shouts.  "Laughinosity!"  he  screams. 
"The  whole  world  is  a  blooming  joke." 

"Which  is  best,"  he  asks  innocently, 
"the  Laughing  Goddess,  or  the  God- 
dess of  Laughter?"  "The  Laughing 
Goddess,"  answers  my  father.  Exul- 
tation shines  thru  the  dilated  pupils 
of  the  questioner,  as  he  responds,  "I 
knew  I  would  catch  you.  The  Laugh- 
ing Goddess  reminds  you  by  the  as- 
sociation of  ideas  of  the  laughing 
hyena,  and  then  instead  of  being  the 
goddess  presiding  over  the  divine 
function  of  laughter,  she  becomes  a 
laughing  stock." 

I  ask  him  something  about  figures. 
"Figures,"  he  answers,  "are  intellectu- 
ally beneath  me.  In  short,  I  would 
never  be  a  great  mathematician.  Yet 
I  appreciate  the  metaphysics  of  mathe- 
matics. I  adore,  I  prostrate  myself 
before  mathematics  as  long  as  there 
are  no  figures  in  it."  Hearing  our 
laughter,  he  explains,  "Yet  this  isn't 
so  foolish  as  it  seems.  Up  to  a  cer- 
tain point  in  geometry  there  are  no 
figures." 

"I  would  have  talked  more  sensibly 
if    Emerson    had    not    been    there." 


64  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

Bangs  his  legs  against  the  edge  of  the 
bed;  my  father  asks  him  if  he  hurt 
himself.  "Not  on  a  material  plane; 
it  was  a  psychic  jar  of  which  you  can- 
not conceive." 

Speaks  in  a  declamatory  tone :  "I 
am  all  the  time  on  the  borderline  be- 
tween Science  and  Folly.  Which  god 
shall  ye  follow,  young  man?" 

My  father  tells  him  he  can  stop 
laughing  if  he  wishes.  "No,  sir," 
comes  the  emphatic  response,  "not  if 
you  lived  in  my  world.  It  is  a  cate- 
gorical imperative  in  the  world  of 
hasheesh :     Thou  shalt  laugh." 

It  is  already  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  I  am  loath  to  leave  this 
frolicsome  dynamo  of  blithesomeness, 
this  continuous  current  of  good-cheer, 
this  generator  of  joyousness,  but  there 
is  a  hard  day's  work  before  me  and 
I  need  a  little  sleep,  so  with  a  last  look 
at  his  Mirthful  Majesty,  I  leave  him 
alone  in  his  glory  and  his  giggles. 

Four  hours  later  I  peep  in.  The  in- 
tellectual merry-andrew  who  criticizes 
the  Concord  Transcendentalist  and 
juggles  philosophic  conceptions  even 
under  the  effects  of  dope,  is  motionless. 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  6$ 

Lassitude  has  usurped  the  throne  of 
laughter. 

I  cannot  tell  what  effect  the  reading 
of  this  case  will  produce  on  others, 
but  in  me  it  awakens  such  risibility 
that  I  hope  never  to  think  of  it  on  an 
occasion  when  silence  or  solemnity  is 
enjoined;  for  if  I  do,  there  is  danger 
of  my  being  ejected  as  unceremoniously 
as  was  Washington  Irving  on  the  day 
he  laughed  at  The  Art  of  Book  Mak- 
ing, in  the  grave  sanctuary  of  the 
British  Museum. 

There  yet  remains  my  own  case. 
On  March  4th,  19 10,  I  came  home, 
feeling  very  tired.  I  found  that  sortie 
cannabis  indica  which  I  had  expected 
had  arrived.  After  supper,  while  fin- 
ishing up  an  article,  I  began  to  debate 
with  myself  whether  I  should  join  the 
hasheesh-eaters  that  night.  The  argu- 
ment ended  in  my  taking  20  minims 
at  9  o'clock.  I  was  alone  in  the  room, 
and  no  one  was  aware  that  I  had 
yielded  to  temptation.  An  hour  later 
I  wrote  in  my  memoranda  book :  Ab- 
solutely no  effect.  At  10.30,  I  com- 
pleted my  article,  and  entered  this 
note:  No  effect  at  all  from  the  hemp. 


66  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

By  this  time  I  was  exhausted,  and  be- 
ing convinced  that  the  hasheesh  would 
not  act,  I  went  to  bed  in  disappoint- 
ment.    I  fell  asleep  immediately. 

I  hear  music.  There  is  something 
strange  about  this  music.  I  have  not 
heard  such  music  before.  The  anthem 
is  far  away,  but  in  its  very  faintness 
there  is  a  lure.  In  the  soft  surge  and 
swell  of  the  minor  notes  there  breathes 
a  harmony  that  ravishes  the  sense  of 
sound.  A  resonant  organ,  with  a  stop 
of  sapphire  and  a  diapason  of  opal, 
diffuses  endless  octaves  from  star  to 
star.  All  the  moon-beams  form 
strings  to  vibrate  the  perfect  pitch, 
and  this  entrancing  unison  is  poured 
into  my  enchanted  ears.  Under  such 
a  spell,  who  can  remain  in  a  bed  ?  The 
magic  of  that  melody  bewitches  my 
soul.  I  begin  to  rise  horizontally  from 
my  couch.  No  walls  impede  my  prog- 
ress, and  I  float  into  the  outside  air. 
Sweeter  and  sweeter  grows  the  music, 
it  bears  me  higher  and  higher,  and  I 
float  in  tune  with  the  infinite — under 
the  turquoise  heavens  where  globules 
of  mercury  are  glittering. 

I   become  an  unhindered  wanderer 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  6/ 

thru  unending  space.  No  air-ship  can 
go  here,  I  sa3^  I  am  astonished  at  the 
vastness  of  infinity.  I  always  knew 
it  was  large,  I  argue,  but  I  never 
dreamt  it  was  as  huge  as  this.  I  de- 
sire to  know  how  fast  I  am  floating 
thru  the  air,  and  I  calculate  that  it 
must  be  about  a  billion  miles  a  second. 

I  am  transported  to  wonderland,  I 
walk  in  streets  where  gold  is  dirt,  and 
I  have  no  desire  to  gather  it.  I  won- 
der whether  it  is  worth  while  to  ex- 
plore the  canals  of  Ma''s,  or  rock  my- 
self on  the  rings  of  Saturn,  but  before 
I  can  decide,  a  thousand  other  fancies 
enter  my  excited  brain. 

I  wish  to  see  if  I  can  concentrate  my 
mind  sufficiently  to  recite  something, 
and  I  succeed  in  correctly  quoting  this 
Stanza  from  a  favorite  poem  which  I 
am  perpetually  re-reading: 

"Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 

For  the  black  bat,  night,  has  flown, 
Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 

I  am  here  at  the  gate  alone; 
And  the  woodbine  spices  are  wafted  abroad, 
And  the  musk  of  the  rose  is  blown." 

It  occurs  to  me  that  it  is  high  honor 
for  Tennyson  to  have  his  poetry 
quoted  in  heaven. 


68  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

I  turn,  I  twist,  I  twirl,  I  melt,  I 
fade,  I  dissolve.  No  diaphanous  cloud 
is  so  light  and  airy  as  I.  I  admire  the 
ease  with  which  I  float.  My  grace- 
fulness fills  me  with  delight.  My 
body  is  not  subject  to  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation. I  sail  dreamily  along,  lost  in 
exquisite  intoxication. 

New  scenes  of  wonder  continually 
unravel  themselves  before  my  aston- 
ished eyes.  I  say  to  myself  that  if 
I  could  only  record  one  one-thousandth 
of  the  ideas  which  come  to  me  every 
second,  I  would  be  considered  a 
greater  poet  than  Milton. 

I  am  on  the  top  of  a  high  mountain- 
peak.  I  am  alone — only  the  romantic 
night  envelops  me.  From  a  distant 
valley  I  hear  the  gentle  tinkling  of 
cow-bells.  I  float  downwards,  and 
find  immense  fields  in  which  peacock's 
tails  are  growing.  They  wave  slowly, 
to  better  exhibit  their  dazzling  ocelli, 
and  I  revel  in  the  gorgeous  colors.  I 
pass  over  mountains  and  I  sail  over 
seas.     I  am  the  monarch  of  the  air. 

I  hear  the  songs  of  women.  Thou- 
sands of  maidens  pass  near  me,  they 
bend  their  bodies  in  the  most  charm- 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  69 

ing  curves,  and  scatter  beautiful  flow- 
ers in  my  fragrant  path.  Some  faces 
are  strange,  some  I  knew  on  earth, 
but  all  are  lovely.  They  smile,  and 
sing  and  dance.  Their  bare  feet  glo- 
rify the  firmament.  It  is  more  than 
flesh  can  stand.  I  grow  sensual  unto 
satyriasis.  The  aphrodisiac  effect  is 
astonishing  in  its  intensity.  I  enjoy 
all  the  women  of  the  world.  I  pur- 
sue countless  maidens  thru  the  confines 
of  heaven.  A  delicious  warmth  suf- 
fuses my  whole  body.  Hot  and  bliss- 
ful I  float  thru  the  universe,  consumed 
with  a  resistless  passion.  And  in  the 
midst  of  this  unexampled  and  unex- 
pected orgy,  I  think  of  the  case  re- 
ported by  the  German  Dr.  Reidel, 
about  a  drug-clerk  who  took  a  huge 
dose  of  hasheesh  to  enjoy  voluptuous 
visions,  but  who  heard  not  even  the 
rustle  of  Aphrodite's  garment,  and  I 
laugh  at  him  in  scorn  and  derision. 

I  sigh  deeply,  open  my  eyes,  and  find 
myself  sitting  with  one  foot  in  bed, 
and  the  other  on  my  desk.  I  am 
bathed  in  warm  sweat  which  is  pleas- 
ant. But  my  head  aches,  and  there  is 
a  feeling  in  my  stomach  which  I  recog- 


yo  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

nize  and  detest.  It  is  nausea.  I  pull 
the  basket  near  me,  and  await  the  in- 
evitable result.  At  the  same  time  I 
feel  like  begging  for  mercy,  for  I  have 
traveled  so  far  and  so  long,  and  I  am 
tired  beyond  limit,  and  I  need  a  rest. 
The  fatal  moment  approaches,  and  I 
lower  my  head  for  the  easier  deposi- 
tion of  the  rising  burden.  And  my 
head  seems  monstrously  huge,  and 
weighted  with  lead.  At  last  the  deed 
is  done,  and  I  lean  back  on  the  pillow. 
I  hear  my  sister  come  home  from 
the  opera.  I  wish  to  call  her.  My 
sister's  name  is  Ellen.  I  try  to  say  it, 
but  I  cannot.  The  effort  is  too  much. 
I  sigh  in  despair.  It  occurs  to  me 
that  I  may  achieve  better  results  if 
I  comprornise  on  Nell,  as  this  contains 
one  syllable  instead  of  two.  Again 
I  am  defeated.  I  am  too  weary  to 
exert  myself  to  any  extent,  but  I  am 
determined.  I  make  up  my  mind  to 
collect  all  my  strength,  and  call  out: 
Nell.  The  result  is  a  fizzle.  No 
sound  issues  from  my  lips.  My  lips 
do  not  move.  I  give  it  up.  My  head 
falls  on  my  breast,  utterly  exhausted 
and  devoid  of  all  energy.    • 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  Jl 

Again  my  brain  teems.  Again  I 
hear  that  high  and  heavenly  harmony, 
again  I  float  to  the  outposts  of  the 
universe  and  beyond,  again  I  see  the 
dancing  maidens  with  their  soft  yield- 
ing bodies,  white  and  warm.  I  am 
excited  unto  ecstasy.  I  feel  myself  a 
brother  to  the  Oriental,  for  the  same 
drug  which  gives  him  joy  is  now  act- 
ing on  me.  I  am  conscious  all  the 
time,  and  I  say  to  myself  in  a  know- 
ing way  with  a  suspicion  of  a  smile: 
All  these  visions  because  of  20 
minims  of  cannabis  indica.  My  only 
regret  is  that  the  trances  are  ceaseless. 
I  wish  respite,  but  for  answer  I 
find  myself  floating  over  an  immense 
ocean.  Then  the  vision  grows  so 
wondrous,  that  body  and  soul  I  give 
myself  up  to  it,  and  I  taste  the  fabled 
joys  of  paradise.  Ah,  what  this  night 
is  worth ! 

The  music  fades,  the  beauteous  girls 
are  gone,  and  I  float  no  more.  But 
the  black  rubber  covering  of  my  type- 
writer glows  like  a  chunk  of  yellow 
phosphorus.  By  one  door  stands  a 
skeleton  with  a  luminous  abdomen 
and  brandishes  a  wooden  sword.     By 


72  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

the  other  door  a  little  red  devil  keeps 
guard.  I  open  my  eyes  wide,  I  close 
them  tight,  but  these  spectres  will  not 
vanish.  I  know  they  are  not  real,  I 
know  I  see  them  because  I  took 
hasheesh,  but  they  annoy  me  neverthe- 
less. I  become  uncomfortable,  even 
frightened.  I  make  a  superhuman  ef- 
fort, and  succeed  in  getting  up  and 
lighting  the  gas.  It  is  two  o'clock. 
Everything  is  the  way  it  should  be,  ex- 
cept that  in  the  basket  I  notice  the  re- 
mains of  an  orange — somewhat  the 
worse  for  wear. 

I  feel  relieved,  and  fall  asleep. 
Something  is  handling  me,  and  I  start 
in  fright.  I  open  my  eyes  and  see  my 
father.  He  has  returned  from  a  meet- 
ing at  the  Academy  of  Medicine,  and 
surprised  at  seeing  a  light  in  my  room 
at  such  a  time,  has  entered.  He  sur- 
mises what  I  have  done,  and  is  anx- 
ious to  know  what  quantity  I  have 
taken.  I  should  have  answered,  with 
a  wink,  quantum  siifficit,  but  I  have 
no  inclination  for  conversation ;  on 
hearing  the  question  repeated,  I  an- 
swer, "Twenty  minims."  He  tells  me 
I  look  as  pale  as  a  ghost,  and  brings  me 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  73 

a  glass  of  water.  I  drinlc  it,  become 
quite  nomial,  and  thus  ends  the  most 
wonderful  night  of  my  existence. 

In  the  morning  my  capacity  for  hap- 
piness is  considerably  increased.  I 
have  an  excellent  appetite,  the  coffee 
I  sip  is  nectar,  and  the  white  bread 
ambrosia.  I  take  my  camera,  and 
walk  to  Central  Park.  It  is  a  glori- 
ous day.  Everyone  I  meet  is  ideal- 
ized. The  lake  never  looked  so  placid 
before.  I  enter  the  hot-houses,  and 
a  gaudy-colored  insect  buzzing  among 
the  lovely  flowers  fills  me  with  joy. 
I  am  too  languid  to  take  any  pictures; 
to  set  the  focus,  to  use  the  proper 
stop,  to  locate  the  image,  to  press  the 
bulb — all  these  seem  herculean  feats 
which  I  dare  not  even  attempt.  But 
I  walk  and  walk,  without  apparent  ef- 
fort, and  my  mind  eagerly  dwells  on 
the  brilliant  pageantry  of  the  night  be- 
fore. I  do  not  wish  to  forget  my 
frenzied  nocturnal  revelry  upon  the 
vast  dome  of  the  broad  blue  heavens. 
I  wish  to  remember  forever,  the  float- 
ing, the  mercury-globules,  the  peacock- 
feathers,    the    colors,    the    music,    the 


74  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

women.     In  memory  I  enjoy  the  car- 
nival all  over  again. 

"For  the  brave  Meiamoun,"  writes 
Theophile  Gaittier,  "Cleopatra  danced; 
she  was  apparalled  in  a  robe  of  green, 
open  at  either  side;  castanets  were  at- 
tached to  her  alabaster  hands.  .  . 
Poised  on  the  pink  tips  of  her  little 
feet,  she  approached  swiftly  to  graze 
his  forehead  with  a  kiss;  then  she  re- 
commenced her  wondrous  art,  and 
flitted  around  him,  now  backward- 
leaning,  with  head  reversed,  eyes  half- 
closed,  arms  lifelessly  relaxed,  locks 
uncurled  and  loose-hanging  like  a 
bacchante  of  Mount  Maenalus;  now 
again  active,  animated,  laughing,  flut- 
tering, more  tireless  and  capricious  in 
her  movements  than  the  pilfering  bee. 
Heart-consuming  love,  sensual  pleas- 
ure, burning  passion,  youth  inex- 
haustible and  ever-fresh,  the  promise 
of  bliss  to  come — she  expressed 
all.  .  .  .  The  modest  stars  had 
ceased  to  contemplate  the  scene;  their 
golden  eyes  could  not  endure  such  a 
spectacle ;  the  heaven  itself  was  blotted 
out,  and  a  dome  of  flaming  vapor  cov- 
ered the  hall." 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  75 

But  for  me  a  thousand  Cleopatras 
caroused — and  did  not  present  me  a 
vase  of  poison  to  drain  at  a  draught. 
Again  I  repeated  to  myself:  "And  all 
these  charming  miracles  because  of  20 
minims  of  Fluidextractum  Cannabis 
Indiccc,  U.  S.  P." 

By  the  afternoon  I  had  so  far  re- 
covered as  to  be  able  to  concentrate 
my  mind  on  technical  studies.  I  will 
not  attempt  to  interpret  my  visions 
psychologically,  but  I  wish  to  refer  to 
one  aspect.  Spencer,  in  Principles  of 
Psychology,  mentions  hasheesh  as  pos- 
sessing the  power  of  reviving  ideas. 
I  found  this  to  be  the  case.  I  spoke 
about  air-ships  because  there  had  been 
a  discussion  about  them  at  supper;  I 
quoted  from  Tennyson's  Maud  be- 
cause I  had  been  re-reading  it;  I  saw 
mercury-globules  in  the  heavens  be- 
cause that  same  day  I  had  worked  with 
mercury  in  preparing  mercurial  plas- 
ter; and  I  saw  the  peacock-tails  be- 
cause a  couple  of  days  previous  I  had 
been  at  the  Museum  of  Natural  His- 
tory and  had  closely  observed  a  magni- 
ficent specimen.  I  cannot  account  for 
the  women. 


yd  AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH 

All  poets — with  the  possible  excep- 
tion of  Margaret  Sangster — have  cele- 
brated Alcohol,,  while  Rudyard  Kip- 
ling has  gone  so  far  as  to  solemnize 
delirium  tremens;  B.  V.  has  glorified 
Nicotine;  DeQuincy  has  immortalized 
Opium;  Murger  is  full  of  praise  for 
Caffeine;  Dtimas  in  Monte  Crista  has 
apotheosized  Hasheesh.  Gautier  has 
vivified  it  in  Club  des  Hachicins, 
Baudelaire  has  panegyrized  it  in  Artifi- 
cial Paradises,  but  as  few  American 
pens  have  done  so,  I  have  taken  it  upon 
myself  to  write  a  sonnet  to  the  most 
interesting  plant  that  blooms : 

Near  Punjab  and  Pab,  in  Sutlej  and  Sind, 
Where   the   cobras-di-capello  abound, 
Where  the  poppy,  palm  and  the  tamarind, 
With  cummin  and  ginger  festoon  the  ground — 
And  the  capsicum  fields  are  all  abloom, 
From'  the  hills  above  to  the  vales  below, 
Entrancing  the  air  with  a  rich  perfume, 
There  too  docs  the  greenish  Cannabis  grow: 
Inflaming  the  blood  with  the  living  fire, 
Till  the  burning  joys  like  the  eagles  rise. 
And  the  pulses  throb  with  a  strange  desire. 
While  passion  awakes  with  a  wild  surprise: — 
O  to  eat  that  drug,  and  to  dream  all  day, 
Of  the  maids  that  live  by  the  Bengal  Bay! 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  'J'J 

APPENDIX 

Mr.  Courtenay  Lemon  has  written 
the  following  memorandum  of  the 
subjective  features  of  his  experience: 

The  first  symptom  which  told  me 
that  the  drug  was  beginning  to  take 
effect  was  a  feeling  of  extreme  light- 
ness. I  seemed  to  be  hollowing  out 
inside,  in  some  magical  manner,  until 
I  became  a  mere  shell,  ready  to  float 
away  into  space.  This  was  soon  suc- 
ceeded, in  one  of  the  breathless  inter- 
vals of  my  prodigious  laughter,  by  a 
diametrically  opposite  sensation  of  ex- 
treme solidity  and  leaden  weight.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  I  had  changed  into 
metal  of  some  sort.  There  was  a 
metallic  taste  in  my  mouth;  in  some 
inexplicable  way  the  surfaces  of  my 
body  seemed  to  communicate  to  my 
consciousness  a  metalliferous  feeling; 
and  I  imagined  that  if  struck  I  would 
give  forth  a  metallic  ring.  This 
heavy  and  metallic  feeling  travelled 
rapidly  upwards  from  the  feet  to  the 
chest,  where  it  stopped,  leaving  my 
head  free  for  the  issuance  of  the 
storms  of  laughter.     Most  of  the  time 


78  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

my  arms  and  legs  seemed  to  be  so 
leaden  that  it  required  Herculean  ef- 
fort to  move  them,  but  under  any  spe- 
cial stimulus,  such  as  the  entrance  of 
a  third  person,  the  vagrant  conception 
of  a  new  idea,  or  an  unusually  hearty 
fit  of  laughing,  this  feeling  of  unlift- 
able  heaviness  in  the  limbs  and  torso 
would  be  forgotten  and  I  would  move 
freely,  waving  my  arms  with  great 
vigor  and  enthusiasm. 

Thruout  the  experiment  I  experi- 
enced a  peculiar  double  consciousness. 
I  was  perfectly  aware  that  my  laugh- 
ter, etc.,  was  the  result  of  having  taken 
the  drug,  yet  I  was  powerless  to  stop 
it,  nor  did  I  care  to  do  so,  for  I  en- 
joyed it  as  thoroly  as  if  it  had  arisen 
from  natural  causes.  In  the  same  way 
the  extension  of  the  sense  of  time  in- 
duced by  the  drug  was  in  itself  in- 
dubitable and  as  cogent  as  any  normal 
evidence  of  the  senses,  yet  I  remained 
able  to  convince  myself  at  any  moment 
by  reflection  that  my  sense  of  time 
was  fallacious.  I  divided  these  impres- 
sions into  hasheesh-time  and  real  time. 
But  in  their  alternations,  so  rapid  as 
to  seem  simultaneous,  both  these  stand- 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  79 

ards  of  time  seemed  equally  valid. 
For  instance,  once  or  twice  when  my 
friend  spoke  of  something  I  had  said 
a  second  before,  I  was  impatient  and 
replied:  "What  do  you  want  to  go 
back  to  that  for  ?  That  was  a  long 
time  ago.  What's  the  use  of  going 
back  into  the  past?"  At  the  next  mo- 
ment, however,  I  would  recognize, 
purely  as  a  matter  of  logic,  that  he 
was  replying  to  the  sentence  before  the 
last  that  I  had  uttered,  and  would  thus 
realize  that  the  remark  to  which  he  re- 
ferred was  separated  from  the  present 
only  by  a  moment's  interval.  I  did 
not,  however,  at  any  time  on  this  oc- 
casion, attain  the  state  sometimes 
reached  in  the  second  stage  of  has- 
heesh intoxication  in  which  mere  time 
disappears  in  an  eternity  wherein 
ages  rush  by  like  ephemera;  nor  did 
I  experience  any  magnification  of  the 
sense  of  space,  my  experiences  in  re- 
gard to  such  extensions  being  confined 
to  an  intermittent  multiplication  of  the 
sense  of  time. 

When  my  laughter  began  it  seemed 
for  an  instant  to  be  mechanical,  as  if 
produced    by    some    external    power 


8o  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

which  forced  air  in  and  out  of  my 
lungs ;  it  seemed  for  an  instant  to  pro- 
ceed from  the  body  rather  than  from 
the  mind ;  to  be,  in  its  inception,  merely 
physical  laughter  without  a  corre- 
sponding psychic  state  of  amusement. 
But  this  was  only  momentary.  After 
the  first  few  moments  I  enjoyed  laugh- 
ing immensely.  I  felt  an  inclination 
to  joke  as  well  as  to  laugh,  and  I  re- 
member saying:  "I  am  going  to  have 
some  reason  for  this  laughing,  so  I 
will  tell  a  story;  if  I  have  to  laugh  any- 
way, I'm  going  to  supply  good  reasons 
for  doing  so,  as  it  would  be  idiotic  to 
laugh  about  nothing."  I  thereupon 
proceeded  to  relate  an  anecdote.  Al- 
tho  I  knew  that  my  condition  was  the 
result  of  the  drug,  I  was  nevertheless 
filled  with  a  genuine  sense  of  profound 
hilarity,  an  eager  desire  to  impart 
similar  merriment  to  others,  and  a  feel- 
ing of  immense  geniality  and  mirth, 
accompanied  by  sentiments  of  the  most 
expansive  good-will. 

Against  the  effects  of  the  drug, 
much  as  I  enjoyed  and  yielded  to  it, 
there  was  opposed  a  preconceived  in- 
tention.    I  had  determined  to  tell  my 


AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH  8 1 

friend  Victor  Robinson,  who  was 
taking  notes  of  my  condition,  just  how 
I  felt;  had  determined  to  supply  as 
much  data  as  possible  in  regard  to  my 
sensations.  The  result  was  that  I  re- 
peatedly summoned  all  the  rational 
energy  that  remained  to  me,  and 
fought  desperately  to  express  the 
thoughts  that  came  to  me,  whether 
riduculous  or  analytical.  Sometimes 
when  I  felt  myself  slipping  away  again 
into  laughter  or  dreaminess  I  sum- 
moned all  my  strength  to  say  what  I 
had  in  mind,  and  would  lose  the  thread 
of  my  thought  and  could  not  remem- 
ber what  I  wanted  to  say,  but  would 
return  to  it  again  and  again  with  the 
utmost  determination  and  tenacity  un- 
til I  succeeded  in  saying  what  I  wished 
to — sometimes  an  observation  about 
my  sensations,  often  only  a  jest  about 
my  condition.  I  believe  that  this 
acted  as  a  great  resistant  to  the  effect 
of  the  drug.  The  energy  of  the  drug 
was  dissipated,  I  think,  in  overcoming 
my  will  to  observe  and  analyze  my  sen- 
sations, and  it  was  probably  for  this 
reason  that  I  did  not  pass  very  far  on 
this  occasion  into  the  second  stas:e  in 


82  AN    ESSAY    ON    HASHEESH 

which  laughter  gives  place  to  grandi- 
ose visions  and  charming  hallucina- 
tions. 

After  my  friend  Victor  and  his 
father  turned  out  the  light  and  left  the 
room,  my  laughter  gradually  subsided 
into  a  few  final  gurgles  of  ineffable 
mirth  and  benevolence,  and  after  a 
period  of  the  amorous  visions  some- 
times induced  by  this  pliiltre  from  the 
land  of  harems,  I  fell  into  a  sound 
sleep  after  my  three  hours  of  continu- 
ous and  exhausting  laughter. 

I  awoke  next  morning  after  seven 
hours  sleep,  with  a  ravenous  appetite, 
which  I  think  was  probably  as  much 
due  to  the  great  expenditure  of  energy 
in  laughing  as  to  any  direct  effect  of 
the  drug  itself.  I  was  also  very  thirsty 
and  my  skin  was  parched  and  burning. 
Altho  I  immediately  dressed  and  went 
down  to  breakfast,  I  felt  very  drowsy 
and  disinclined  to  physical  exertion  or 
mental  concentration.  And  while  no 
longer  given  to  causeless  laughter,  I 
felt  a  lingering  merriment  and  was 
easily  moved  to  chuckling.  I  slept 
several  hours  in  the  afternoon  and 
after  dinner  I  slept  all  evening,  awak- 


AN   ESSAY   ON    HASHEESH  83 

ing  at  II  p.  M.,  when  I  arose  feeling 
very  much  refreshed  and  entirely  nor- 
mal, and  went  out  to  get  another  meal, 
being  still  hungry.  I  should  say  that 
the  immediate  after-effect,  the  reaction 
from  the  stimulation  of  hasheesh,  h 
not  much  greater,  except  for  the 
drowsiness,  than  that  following  the 
common  or  beer  garden  variety  of  in- 
toxication. My  memory  of  what  I 
said  and  did  while  under  the  hasheesh 
was  complete  and  accurate. 


Date  Due 

IfT 

^  *^7B 

r- 

^^76 

■p 

A  000  500  532  7 


■  QV109 
R665e 
1912 
Robirson,  Victor 

An  essay  on  hasheesh 

MEDICAL  SCIENCES  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  IRVINE 

IRVINE,  CALIFORNIA  92664 


